CKO, 


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BOOK     178.  1.M72    c.  1 

MODERATION    VS    TOTAL    ABSTINENCE    # 

ODERATION    VS    TOTAL    ABSTINENCE 


3    T153    DDDbBBOT    1 


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V    \i> 


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MODERATION 


TOTAL  ABSTINENCE 


OR, 


DR.  CROSBY 


EVIEWERS. 


NEW  YORK : 

The  National  Temperance  Society  and  Publication  House, 

58  Reade  Street. 
1881. 


530 


THE  BIBLE  WINE  QUESTION. 


The  jSTational  Temperance  Society  has  published  a  variety  of  Books  and  Tracts  upon  ti 
Wine  Question,  by  some  of  the  ablest  writers  in  the  world.  The  investigation  clearly  sho\ 
the  exlj^tcnce  of  two  kinds  of  wine,  the  fermented  and  unfermeuted,  and  presents  nuraeroi 
and  convincinfr  authorities. 

TJie  Divine  I^aw  as  to  Wines.     12rao,  326  pages-    By  Geo.  W,  Samson,  D.D., 

former  President  of  Columbian  University,  Washington,  D.  C 14) 

Years  of  careful  study  have  been  given  to  its  preparation,  aided  by  personal  ob- 
servation and  extensive  inquiry  in  Eastern  lands.  The  whole  question  is  treated  from 
a  stand-point  and  acquaintance  with  the  subject  which  commands  the  attention  of 
scholars,  scientists,  ministers,  and  all  who  are  interested  in  a  thorough  investigation 
of  this  most  important  subject. 

Oible   ^ViiieN,   or  the  liUAVS  of  Ferinentatioii,  and  Wines  of  tlie 

Ancients.    12mo,  139  pages.    By  Rev.  Wm.  Patton,  D.D.    Paper,  25c.  ;  cloth, 

It  presents  the  whole  matter  of  Bible  Temperance,  and  the  wines  of  ancient  times, 

in  a  new,  clear,  and  f?atisfactory  manner,  developing  tbe  laws  of  fermeuiatiou,  and 

giving  a  large  number  of  references  and  statistics  "never  before  collected,  showing 

conclusively  the  existence  of  unfermented  wme  in  the  olden  time. 

Bible  Rule  of  Temperance,  18mo,  206  pages.  By  Rev.  Geo.  Duflield,  D.D. 
This  is  the  ablest  and  most  reliable  work  which  has  been  issued  on  the  subject. 
The  immorality  of  the  use,  sale,  and  manufacture  of  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  bever- 
age is  considered  in  the  light  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the  will  and  law  of  God  clearly 
presented. 

Coiuinuniou  Wine,  or  Bible  Temperance.    133  pages.    By  Rev.  Wm.  M. 

Thayer.    Paper,  20c.  ;  cloth 

An  unanswerable  argument  against  the  use  of  intoxicating  wine  at  Communion, 
and  presenting  the  Bible  argument  for  abstinence. 

Scripture  Testimony  against  Intoxicating  W^iue.    By  Rev.  Wm.  M. 

Ritchie,  of  Scotland.     ISrao,  213  pages 

An  unanswerable  refutation  of  the  theory  that  the  Scriptures  favor  the  idea  of  the 
use  of  intoxicating  wine  as  a  beverage.  It  takes  the  different  kinds  of  wines  men- 
tioned in  the  Scriptures,  investigates  their  specific  nature,  and  shows  wherein  they 
differ. 

Gospel  Temperance.    12mo,114pp.  ByRev.  J.  M.  VanBuren.  Paper, 25c.;  cloth. 
This  work  is  intended  to  supply  the  felt  necessity  for  an  authoritative  law  on  the 
subject  of  Temperance.    It  gives  a  clear  explanation  of  that  law,  with  its  applications, 
and  the  duties  it  imposes. 

Tlte  Cliurcli  and  Temperance.    By  John  W.  Mears,  D.D 

Tlie  Moral  Duty  of  Total  Abstinence.    By  Rev.  T.  L.  Cuyler,  D.D 

Tlie  Wines  of  tUe  Bible.    By  Eev.  C.  H.  Fowler,  D.D  

Four-Page  Tracts.     $3.00  per  Thousand. 


Timotliy  a  Teetotaler. 
Uomestlc  Wine. 

Tlie  ^  ine-Cup  and  tlie  Gallows. 
Ctuestions  with  Bible  Answers. 
Wiiere  did  Timothy  get  liis  Wine  ? 
Siiall  We  Drink  ^Vine? 
Sliali  We  use  Wine  and  Beer? 
A    Word   to   Scriptural  W^ine 
Drinkers. 


Wine  and  Expediency. 

Win  e- Drinking— the    BeginnI 

and  tlie  £ndlng. 
Timothy    Titcomb's   Testimon 

against  Wine. 
Wine- Drinking  in  France. 
Tlie  Sabbath  and  Temperance. 
The  Cliurch  and  Temperance. 
The  Miracle  at  Cana. 


Eight-Page  Tracts.     $6.00  per  Thousand. 

Bible  ^Vines.  I  Does  the  Bible  Sanction  the  use  < 

Does   the    Bible    Favor   Moderate  W^ine  at  the  Iiord's  Supper  ? 

Drinking?  I  Bible  Opposed  to  W^iue- Drinking 

NATIVE  WIXES.     Twelve  Pages.     $9.00  per  Thousand. 

Address      J.  N.  STEARNS,  Publishing;  Agent, 

58  JReade  Street,  New  Tor) 


?s.  Tola 


V\C.3 


OR, 


DR.  CROSBY  AND  HIS  REVIEWERS. 


NEW  YORK: 

The  National  Temperance  Society  and  Publication  House, 

58  Reade  Street. 

1881. 


Copyright,  1881, 

BY 

J.  N.  STEARNS,  Publishing  Agent. 


H.  J.  Hewitt,  Printer,  Ti  Rose  Street,  New  York. 


CONTENTS. 


A  Calm  View  of  the  Temperance  Question, 

By  Chancellor  Crosby,  5 

A  Review  of  Dr.  Crosby,     .         By  Rev.  Dr.  Mark  Ilo^^Uns,  '25 

A  Reply  to  Dr.  Crosby's  '*  Calm  View  of  Temperance," 

By  Wendell  PhilUp.%  89 

A  Reply  to  Dr.  Crosby's  "  Calm  View  of  Temperance," 

By  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster,  59 

Joseph  Cook's  Pulpit  and  Temperance, 

By  Theodore  L.  Cwjler,  D.D..  S9 

Relations  of  Distilled  and  Fermented  Liquors, 

By  Ezra  M.  Hunt,  DI).,  94 

An  Open  Letter,     .         .         .        By  Rev.  Dr.  A.  J.  Gordon,  98 

The  "Calm  View"— Comments  of  the  Press,  .        .        .100 

The  Voice  of  Science,    .          .......  114 

The  Voice  of  Scripture, 119 


A  CALM  YIEW 


OF  THE 


TEMPERANCE  ODESTION. 


By  chancellor  CROSBY,  or  New  York. 


An  Address  delivered  in  Treino?it  Temple^  Jan.  lo,  1881, 
in  the  Boston  Monday  Lecture  Course. 


I^HE  object  of  temperance  societies  is  to  prevent  drunk- 
enness.   The  cardinal  principle  in  tbese  societies  is 
total  abstinence  from  all  tbat  can  intoxicate.    That 
total  abstinence,  if  adopted  by  all,  will  prevent  drunken- 
ness no  one  will  dispute.    The  object  of  temperance  socie- 
ties would  be  gained. 

But  two  questions  arise  after  contemplating  tbese  propo- 
sitions :  first,  will  tbis  plan  of  total  abstinence  be  adopted  ? 
and,  secondly,  ougbt  it  to  be  adopted?  The  first  question  is 
prudential,  the  second  is  moral. 

THE  prude:ntial  qtjestio:n-. 
1.  Will  tbe  plan  of  total  abstinence  from  all  that  in- 
toxicates be  received  by  men  in  general?  We  desire 
to  use  in  all  measures  of  reform  a  plan  that  is  practica- 
ble. We  cannot  be  satisfied  with  mere  testimony  to  a 
theory  that  will  be  unproductive  of  results.  Herein  re- 
form differs  from  religion.  Religion  demands  adhesion  to 
a  truth  stamped  by  the  conscience,  even  though  that  truth 
find  no  other  adherent.  But  reform  lies  in  the  domain  of 
the  expedient.  It  seeks  to  make  society  better,  and  if  it 
cannot  raise  society  to  the  highest  level  it  will  raise  it  as 
high  as  it  can.    It  will  not  prefer  to  let  society  wallow  be- 

5 


6  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

cause  it  cannot  place  it  in  an  ideal  Utopia.  The  most  reli- 
gious and  conscientious  man  will  be  glad  to  see  men  leave 
off  strife  and  discord,  even  if  they  do  not  act  from  the  high- 
est motives  or  attain  to  the  heights  of  a  genuine  charity. 
His  conscience  will  not  be  injured  by  their  improved  condi- 
tion, however  much  he  would  like  to  see  them  still  more 
enlightened.  It  is  an  important  point  to  make  clear  to  the 
mind  this  distinction  between  the  conduct  of  reform  and  the 
movement  of  personal  religion,  for  confusion  here  has  led  to 
much  false  action.  A  common  argument  of  the  radical  agi- 
tator is  that  his  conscience  cannot  stop  short  of  total  absti- 
nence in  the  temperance  question,  and  on  that  ground  he 
will  not  have  any  afifiliation  with  one  who  seeks  to  subdue 
the  intemperance  of  the  land  by  any  other  method.  But  his 
argument  is  a  complete  non  sequitur.  His  conscience  con- 
cerns his  own  personal  habits.  In  the  matter  of  other  peo- 
ple's habits  he  is  simply  to  do  the  best  the  circumstances 
allow.  The  conscience  that  prescribes  his  personal  habits 
may  make  him  long  to  see  others  like  him,  and  may  make 
him  work  to  that  end,  but  it  cannot  rebuke  him  if  that  end 
is  not  attained,  but  only  an  approximation  is  gained ;  nay,  it 
should  make  him  work  for  the  approximation  with  all  zeal. 

Too  often  that  which  is  called  conscience  is  mere  obsti- 
nacy of  opinion  and  personal  pride.  A  large  part  of  the 
fanaticism  that  history  records  has  been  made  in  this  way. 
Men  have  gone  to  the  stake  as  martyrs,  or  sufferers  for  con- 
science' sake,  when  the  heresy  they  professed  never  went 
deeper  than  their  sentiment,  and  might  readily  have  been 
altered  by  a  free  judgment.  While  this  fact  does  not  justffy 
their  persecutors  or  palliate  their  guilt,  yet  it  certainly  de- 
tracts from  the  merit  of  the  martyrdom.  In  this  matter  of 
arresting  the  progress  of  drunkenness  we  may  have  very 
different  views  of  the  means  to  be  used,  and  we  may  consci- 
entiously adhere  to  our  own  plan  of  working  toward  the 
end,  but  we  cannot  conscientious! i/  object  to  the  means  em- 
ployed by  others  unless  they  contain  an  immorahty.  Nay, 
more,  we  must  conscientiously  wish  them  success. 

If  this  principle  of  sympathy  and  co-operation  on  the  part 
of  all  who  seek  the  abatement  of  intemperance  were  once 


A  Calm  View  of  the  TcmiJcrance  Question.  7 

established,  -ue  should  see  effects  that  are  now  thwarted  by 
the  divisions  and  mutual  hostility  of  those  who  profess  to 
have  the  same  end  in  view.  One  ol  the  reasons  for  this  con- 
firmed hostility  of  the  total- abstinence  advocates  against 
Lbe  reformers  who  do  not  adopt  that  principle  is  found  in 
Lbe  power  of  a  false  usage.  I  refer  to  the  word  ^'  tem- 
perance." 

MEA:jfIXG  OF    THE  WORD    "  TEMPERAXCE." 

The  word  has  been  violently  wrested  from  its  legitimate 
meaning.  By  a  persistent  use  of  a  moderate  word  for  radi- 
cal measures  the  great  unthinking  public,  so  far  as  they  are 
seekers  tor  the  common  good,  have  been  led  to  see  in  these 
radical  measures  the  only  path  of  duty.  They  have  learned 
to  consider  all  that  was  opposed  to  the  party  called  by  the 
name  of  temperance  as  inimical  to  temperance,  and  so  have 
enormously  swelled  the  radical  ranks  by  their  unenlightened 
adhesion.  The  label  has  been  afiQxed  to  the  wrong  goods, 
and  the  unsuspecting  purchaser  has  not  noticed  the  fact. 
So  potent  has  been  this  deception  that  I  undertake  to  say 
that  there  are  thousands  of  worthy  citizens  who  have  no 
other  idea  of  the  word  ' '  temperance  "  than  that  it  means 
the  total  abstinence  from  all  that  can  intoxicate.  With  such 
we  have  to  begin  with  first  principles.  We  have  to  show- 
them  that  tbe  Latin  temperantia  signifies  the  moral  quality 
of  moderation  or  discreetness,  and  that  the  English  word 
*'  temperance,"  as  used  in  all  good  standard  English  works, 
means  precisely  the  same  thing.  We  have  to  show  them 
that  the  temperate  zone  does  not  mean  a  zone  which  totally 
abstains  from  cold  or  heat,  but  a  zone  that  is  moderate  in 
both;  that  a  temperate  behavior  is  not  a  behavior  that 
totally  abstains  from  severity,  but  one  that  is  steady  and 
reasonable  in  its  course;  as  Cicero  says  ("  Fam.,"  12,  27): 
^'Est  autem  ita  temperatis  moderatisque  moribus  ut  summa 
severitas  samma  cum  humanitate  juugatur."'  And  while 
quoting  Cicero  I  may  quote  his  definitions  of  temperance  as 
given  in  his  '^  De  Ftnibus  "—first,  '^  Temperantia  est  modera- 
tio  cupiditatum,  rationi  obediens"  (2, 19,  60) ;  and,  secondly, 
'*  Temperantia  est  quae,  in  rebus  aut  expetendis  aut  fugien- 


8  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

dis,  rationem  ut  sequamur  monet"  (1,  14,  47).  Now,  what 
a  fearful  prostitution  of  a  Doble  word  is  seen  in  the  popular 
use  of  the  word  ''  temperance"  to-day  !  And  this  prostitu- 
tion is  a  work  wrought  within  the  last  fifty  years.  From  its 
high  position  as  signifying  a  grand  moral  subjection  of  the 
whole  man  to  the  sway  of  reason  it  is  degraded  to  the  maimed 
and  mutilated  function  of  representing  a  legalism  that  pro- 
hibits man  from  any  drink  that  can  intoxicate.  To  what 
base  uses  has  it  come  at  last !  This  false  use  of  a  word  has 
had  special  influence  upon  that  portion  of  the  unthinking 
public  who  rightly  reverence  the  Scriptures.  They  see  that 
temperance  is  put  in  the  list  of  Christian  virtues ;  and  as 
temperance  now  means  total  abstinence,  what  can  they  do, 
as  loyal  believers  in  the  Scriptures,  but  sign  the  pledge,  and, 
furtheiTuore,  count  all  who  do  not  as  aliens  from  God's 
truth  ?  They  are  as  honest  and  as  enlightened  as  the  good 
Presbyterian  woman  who  only  needed  to  see  the  words 
^'general  assembly"  in  the  Bible  to  know  she  was  right  and 
everybody  else  wrong. 

Now,  the  use  of  a  false  argument  always  reacts  against 
the  user,  and,  while  the  ignorant  and  semi-ignorant  multi- 
tude will  be  deceived,  the  thinking  classes  (;f  society  will 
shun  a  cause  that  rests  on  misrepresentation.  The  word 
'^temperance,"  as  seized  and  appropriated  by  radical  and 
intemperate  souls,  is  a  false  flag,  and,  as  a  false  flag,  will 
disgust  and  alienate  true  and  enlightened  souls.  Especially 
will  this  be  the  case  when  it  is  found  to  be  only  one  of  many 
false  lights  held  out  to  attract  the  masses.  Another  ot  these 
deceptions  (of  course  I  do  not  say  these  are  wilful  deceptions 
by  all  that  use  them ;  I  am  only  speaking  of  their  absolute 
character)— another  of  these  deceptions  is  the  circulated 
theory  of  an  unfermented,  unintoxicatmg  wine.  There  is 
not  a  chemist  nor  a  classical  scholar  in  the  world  who  would 
dare  risk  his  reputation  on  the  assertion  that  there  was  ever 
an  unfermented  wine  in  common  use,  knowing  well  that 
7mist  preserved  from  fermentation  is  called  wine  only  by  a 
kind  of  courtesy  (as  the  lump  of  unbaked  dough  might  be 
called  ^^  bread  "),  and  that  this  could  in  the  nature  of  things 
never  be  a  common  drink.  Cato  (''  DeRe  Rustica,"  120)  shows 


A  Calm  View  of  the  Tempercmce  Qiiestion.  0 

how  by  a  very  careful  method  malt  could  be  kept  for  a  whole 
year,  and  other  Roman  writers  show  the  same  j  but  who  can 
pretend  that  these  writers  ever  looked  upon  such  preserved 
juice  as  wine,  when  their  whole  object  is  to  show  how  it  can  be 
kept  from  becoming  wine?  Yet,  with  no  other  foundation 
than  this,  the  leaders  of  the  total-abstinence  cause  have  pub- 
lished their  bull  affiiming  that  the  good  wines  of  antiquity 
were  uufermented,  in  utter  defiance  of  chemistry,  history, 
and  common  sense.  Because  the  grape-juice  could,  by  means 
of  hermetically-sealed  vessels  under  water,  be  kept  grape- 
juice,  therefore  the  common  wines  of  antiquity,  the  wine  of 
which  writers  speak  when  they  use  no  qualilying  phrase, 
must  have  been  unfermented.  This  is  the  logic  used  by 
these  infatuated  defenders  of  the  total  abstinence  principle. 

DISTORTIOI^^  or  SCRIPTUEE. 

A  third  deception  in  this  cause  is  the  twisting  of  Scrip- 
ture to  its  advocacy.  No  unbiassed  reader  can  for  a  moment 
doubt  that  wine,  as  referred  to  in  the  Bible  passim^  is  an  in- 
toxicating drink,  and  that  such  wine  was  drunk  by  our  Sa- 
viour and  the  early  Christians.  To  meet  this  fatal  blow  to 
the  total- abstinence  system  in  the  minds  of  those  who  take 
the  Bible  as  their  guide,  the  advocates  of  the  cause  have  in- 
vented a  theory  that  is  magnificent  in  its  daring.  It  is  no 
less  than  the  division  of  the  word  '^wine''  by  a  Solomo- 
nian  sword,  so  that  the  good  and  the  bad  shall  each  have  .a 
piece  of  it.  Whenever  wine  is  spoken  of  severely  in  Scrip- 
ture, then  it  is  fermented  wine ;  and  whenever  it  is  spoken 
of  in  praise,  or  used  by  our  Lord  and  his  apostles,  then  it  is 
unfermented  wine.  And  if  you  ask  these  sages  why  they  so 
divide  wine — on  what  grounds  they  base  this  theory — they 
bravely  answer  that  our  Saviour  could  not  have  drunk  in- 
toxicating wine,  and  God's  word  never  could  have  praised 
such,  and,  therefore,  their  theory.  They  start  with  the  beg- 
ging of  the  whole  question,  and  then  on  this  thin  air  they 
build  their  castle. 

It  is  not  now  my  purpose  to  argue  with  these  strange  logi- 
cians. I  only  wish  to  put  this  Scripture-twisting  in  the  list 
of  deceptive  methods  used  by  the  representative  total-absti- 


10  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

nence  reformers  to  promote  their  cause.  I  could  add,  in  this 
item,  the  false  use  of  texts  and  the  suppression  of  parts  of 
texts,  but  I  leave  the  matter  here. 

The  three  elements  of  deception  entering  into  their  cause 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  use  of  tbe  word  temperance  for  a 
totally  differeut  thing,  the  fable  about  unfermented  wine, 
and  the  violent  wresting  of  the  Scriptures.  Now,  I  unhesi 
tatingly  affirm  that  a  cause  having  such  falsehoods  as  its 
main  support  can  never  be  accepted  by  the  public.  Simple- 
minded  people  may  be  gained  to  it,  but  the  thinking  people 
will  be  repelled.  It  is  true  that  some  may  adhere  to  it,  in 
spite  of  its  falsehood,  for  other  reasons ;  but  the  three  great 
untruths  that  are  flaunted  on  its  banners  will  disgust  most 
men  who  have  brains  and  use  them. 

A  second  reason  why  I  believe  the  plan  of  total  abstinence 
will  not  be  adopted  by  the  people  is  its  immanliness.  To 
stop  the  use  of  anything  because  of  its  abuse  is  an  expedi- 
ent for  the  weak  and  diseased,  an  exceptional  plan  for  excep- 
tional cases ;  but  to  assert  this  principle  among  men  in  gene- 
ral would  be  to  degrade  the  race  and  remove  all  tbe  incen- 
tives and  helps  to  moral  gTowth.  We  know  in  the  family 
how  mistaken  a  method  it  is  to  remove  everything  the  child 
should  not  play  with  out  of  its  reach.  Tbe  wise  parent 
leaves  the  article  in  its  accustomed  place,  and  teaches  the 
child  its  rightful  use. 

SELF-COXTEOL. 

The  other  plan  only  makes  the  child  more  and  more  de- 
pendent on  external  checks,  and  prevents  the  growth  of 
self-control.  The  same  reasoning  holds  good  in  the  human 
family  at  large.  We  are  to  develop  self-control  as  much  as 
possible.  A  true  civilization  always  seeks  to  do  this.  A 
barbarous  state  of  society  requires  man  to  hide  everything 
valuable  in  places  unknown  to  others,  and  to  go  personally 
armed  to  secure  himself  against  attack.  But  a  civilized 
condition  reveals  a  very  diflerent  state  of  things.  Men  live 
in  houses  full  of  valuables,  and  walk  the  streets  unarmed 
and  in  security.  Dependence  is  placed  upon  the  common 
self-control,  and  it  is  acknowledged  to  be  a  far  higher  and 


A  Calm  Vieiv  of  the  Temperance  Question.        11 

more  successful  principle  for  the  conduct  of  human  life.  Of 
course  there  is  a  limit  to  this  practical  trusting  of  mankind, 
and  much  wisdom  is  needed  to  mark  this  limit  correctly  in 
any  given  instance.  But  the  general  truth  is  evident  that 
true  civilization  is  in  the  direction  of  personal  self-control, 
and  not  in  that  of  governmental  prohibition.  Weexpectlaw 
to  proJiihit  crime,  but  we  look  to  law  only  to  regulate  matters 
that  do  not  involve  crime,  but  contain  risk  under  certain 
conditions.  Now,  the  selling  or  drinking  of  wine  is  certainly 
not  a  crime,  and  any  legislation  which  prohibits  it  is  open  to 
the  charge  of  putting  it  in  a  wrong  category  and  abusing 
the  popular  conscience.  A  prohibition  for  certain  times  or 
places  may  be  defended  without  subjecting  the  act  to  this 
false  imputation  ;  but  a  total  prohibition,  the  cardinal  doc- 
trine of  the  total-abstinence  people,  at  once  brands  wine- 
drinking  with  theft  and  Violence.  Things  that  are  not 
vicious  in  themselves,  but  which  may  be  readily  abused  to 
vicious  ends,  certainly  need  legislative  regulation,  and  such 
regulation  is  a  help  to  self-control,  where  prohibition  would 
be  a  hindrance.  Regulation  is  a  hint  to  put  the  people  on 
their  guard,  but  prohibitioa  is  completely  taking  away  the 
subject  from  the  people's  notice.  Now,  the  public  mind  re- 
volts at  being  treated  in  this  childlike  way.  It  virtually 
says :  ''  Give  us  certain  wise  rules  about  this  thing,  but  for 
the  sake  of  respectable  and  dignified  humanity  do  not  sweep 
it  away  from  the  earth."  Eemember  that  we  are  not  argu- 
ing now  on  the  merits  of  the  total-abstinence  theory,  but  only 
on  its  feasibility.  We  do  not  say  that  it  is  a  wrong  principle. 
We  only  say  that  people  will  not  adopt  it,  and  we  are  showing 
the  reasons  why  they  will  not.  The  community  will  not  unrea- 
sonably (as  they  think)  be  put  into  leading-strings  and  kept  in 
a  permanent  nursery — and  that,  too,  by  men  who  use  manifest 
falsehoods  as  prominent  arguments  for  their  position.  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  the  pubhc  conscience,  and  people  will 
draw  lines  of  distinction  between  things  criminal  and  things 
indifferent.  They  will  naturally,  therefore,  resist  any  move- 
ment that  tends  to  obliterate  these  distinctions,  and  judge 
of  it  as  the  action  of  a  tyrannic  opinion,  and  not  of  an  ethi- 
cal truth.    They  feel  that  their  manhood  is  assailed,  and  if 


12  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

this  assault  is  allowed  in  this  form  they  may  be  exposed  to 
other  assaults  iu  still  more  odious  forms.  Of  course  it  is 
eapy  for  the  radical  reformers  to  say  that  this  opposition  is 
interested,  and  is  only  the  struggle  of  evil  agamst  those  that 
woiil  I  fetter  it ;  but  there  are  too  many  good,  conscientious, 
and  thoughtful  men  who  feel  all  this  that  I  have  said  for  this 
allegation  to  be  maintained.  We  cannot  consent  to  go  back 
to  mediaeval  nonage,  and  have  our  day's  allowance  doled  out 
to  us  by  a  few  who  arrogate  to  themselves  the  paternal 
management  of  the  world.  We  cannot  permit  the  system 
of  sumptuary  laws  to  take  the  place  of  an  enhghtened  com- 
mon sense.  We  cannot  forego  our  reason  on  the  plea  that 
the  world  is  in  danger.  Nay,  we  must  all  the  more  assert 
our  reason  against  a  false  expediency  that  in  curing,  or  at- 
tempting to  cure,  one  evil  would  create  a  hundred.  Tbe  fact 
that  there  is  a  great  danger  is  the  very  fact  that  should 
guard  us  from  pursuing  any  false  way.  Great  dangers  must 
be  met  by  great  prudence,  not  by  headlong  impulse.  It 
looks  brave  to  shout  and  fall  pell-mell  upon  the  enemy;  but 
it  is  wiser  to  set  our  batteries  in  sure  places,  and  to  order 
line  and  reserves  in  the  interests  of  a  permanent  victory. 
Too  many  of  our  reforms  are  pushed  without  regard  to  the 
character  of  the  means,  the  end  being  insisted  on  as  justify- 
ing all  means.  The  temperance  reform  has  been  an  eminent 
example  of  this  heedlessness. 

THE   SPIRIT  or  rN' TIMID ATION. 

• 

And  here  I  put  the  third  reason  why  I  believe  the  plan  of 
total  abstinence  will  not  be  adopted  by  the  people — because 
of  its  spirit  oi  intimidation.  Of  course  this  is  not  inherent  to 
the  cause,  but  it  has  been  the  invariable  accompaniment  of 
it  during  its  forty  years'  curriculum.  And  we  now  have  to 
deal  practically  with  historic  facts,  and  not  with  mere  ab- 
stract theories.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  whe- 
ther it  be  the  weakness  of  the  case  or  the  unfortunate  choice 
of  leaders  and  defenders,  the  total-abstinence  propaganda 
has  been  an  overbearing  and  tyrannical  power.  It  has  used 
a  violence  of  language  that  can  admit  of  no  excuse.  It  has 
condemned  every  one,  however  faithful  in  all  moral  and  re- 


A  Calm  Vieiu  of  the  Temperance  Question.        13 

ligious  duties,  who  has  refused  to  enter  its  ranks.  It  has 
confounded  all  ideas  of  right  and  \Yroug,  ealumniously  de- 
claring the  man  who  drinks  wine  moderately  is  as  bad  as, 
nay,  worse  than,  the  drunkard;  asserting  that  all  drinks, 
whether  vinous,  malt,  or  distilled,  are  alike  poisonous;  vili- 
fying those  who  teach  any  other  doctrine  by  calling  them 
traitors  to  the  truth — Judas  Iscariots  betraying  the  Master 
—and  exercising  where  it  could  a  fearful  proscription  in 
driving  good  men  from  the  pul[)its  of  the  land  because  they 
would  not  and  could  not  conscientiously  pronounce  their 
shibboleth.  The  principal  printed  organs  cf  this  propaganda 
have  been  full  of  these  fierce  onslaughts  upon  the  character 
of  respectable  men,  and  the  harsh  and  cruel  judgments 
spoken  of  have  been  carried  out  with  the  spirit  of  the  Inqui- 
sition. The  political  world  has  lately  invented  a  word  for 
this  way  of  settling  a  disputed  question.  They  have  called 
it  "  bulldozing."  It  makes  peace  by  creating  a  desert.  It 
produces  unanimity  by  shutting  the  mouths  of  the  other 
side.  The  world  is  apt  to  think  that  such  conduct  indicates 
a  cause  that  cannot  be  sustained  by  reason,  and  the  reaction 
is  likely  to  be  excessive.  It  is  exactly  that  reaction  which 
is  now  making  the  cause  of  rum  and  ruin  more  successful 
than  ever.  Men,  in  their  revolt  from  tyranny,  rush  into 
licentious  extremes ;  and  however  honest  the  tyranny  may 
have  been,  or  however  true  the  cause  it  supported,  it  has 
only  itself  to  blame  for  the  harm  it  does.  A  man  may  put 
bis  hand  on  the  safety-valve  and  exclaim :  ^'  See  how  I  have 
stopped  the  noisy  escape  of  the  steam,"  and  certainly  every- 
thing looks  calm  and  peaceful ;  but  a  few  minutes  afterward, 
when  the  steam  has  had  time  to  gather  its  strength,  our 
hero  will  have  a  difi^erent  cry.  A  little  success  here  and 
there  by  the  total-abstinence  crusade  may  impress  many 
with  the  idea  that  this  is  the  true  way  to  make  men  tempe- 
rate. A  partial  success  in  Maine  has  been  proclaimed  as 
proving  the  question  against  the  painful  failures  everywhere 
else,  but  no  careful  observer  will  either  approve  the  speci- 
men or  take  it  as  a  proof  against  our  general  position. 
Maine  is  but  a  small  part  of  our  country,  and  has  no  great 
seething  population  made  up  from  every  nation  on  earth. 


14  Moderation  vs.  Tatal  Ahstine^ice. 

It  has  a  highly-educated  people,  who  can  bear  an  experi- 
ment in  morals  with  something  of  a  philosophic  spirit.  A 
few  strong-minded  and  high-minded  people  can  become  as- 
ceticS;  but  the  great  world  cannot,  and  we  must  legislate 
for  the  great  world.  Even  Maine  cannot  permanently  keep 
its  Maine  Law. 

There  is  a  general  notion  in  the  public  mind  that  the  pre- 
sent condition  of  Maine  in  regard  to  the  liquor  question  is 
that  of  a  temporary  repression ;  and  whether  that  notion  be 
right  or  WTong,  it  belongs  to  that  public  opinion  which  has 
to  be  regarded  in  all  prudential  planning.  The  general 
thought  of  the  community  concerning  this  repression  is  that 
it  belongs  to  a  system  of  intimidation  that  can  never  be  a 
permanent  institution  in  this  land. 

I  have  thus  far  considered  only  the  prudential  question. 
The  total- abstinence  scheme  may  be  in  strict  accordance  with- 
theoretical  virtue.  It  may  be  the  grand  end  to  which  all  re- 
forming processes  should  tend.  All  we  have  endeavored 
thus  far  to  establish  is  that  it  is  a  plan  that  cannot  succeed^ 
if  we  are  to  judge  it  by  its  past  history  and  methods,  as  well 
as  by  its  intrinsic  principles,  and  that  therefore  to  push  the 
plan  is  to  defeat  the  great  end  we  should  all  have  in  view — 
the  cessation  of  drunkenness  with  its  fearful  ruin  to  body, 
soul,  and  society.  We  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the 
public  mind  will  not  receive  a  system  whose  principal  agen- 
cies have  been  falsehoods  and  intimidation,  and  whose  prin- 
ciples they  consider  to  be  at  war  with  a  proper  manliness  or 
self-respect.  We  repeat  (that  no  one  may  mistake  us;  that 
these  falsehoods  and  intimidations  are  not  necessary  parts  of 
the  system,  but  have  been  its  constant  adjuncts  in  point  of 
fact;  and  we  also  repeat  that  our  argument  regarding  man- 
liness is  not  (so  far  as  we  have  gone)  so  much  a  charge 
against  the  system  as  a  statement  of  what  a  very  large  por- 
tion of  respectable  and  virtuous  thinkers  think  of  it.  It  is 
from  such  considerations,  we  hold,  that  the  plan  of  total- 
abstinence  as  a  method  of  eradicating  drunkenness  and  its  at- 
tendant vices  will  never  be  adopted  by  the  community.  One 
other  thing  I  desire  to  repeat  before  taking  up  the  other 
branch  of  my  subject,  and  that  is  that  1  make  no  charge  of 


A  Calm  View  of  the  Temperance  Question.        15 

purposed  falsehood  on  any  of  the  total-abstinence  leaders. 
Their  main  arguments  are  falsehoods,  as  I  have  shown,  but 
I  am  quite  sure  that  the  excellent  men  who  are  often  found 
leading  the  crusade  are  honest  in  their  use  of  these  false 
statements.  They  take  up  these  weapons  without  suffi- 
ciently examining  them.  They  see  that  they  can  be  made 
effective,  but  do  not  stop  to  enquire  whether  they  are  legiti- 
mate. Their  praiseworthy  zeal  outstrips  their  judgment 
and  prudence.  I  honor  the  heart  and  energy  of  very  many 
of  these  men.  They  show  a  philanthropy  and  consecration, 
involving  often  self-denial  and  loss,  which  demand  our  ad- 
miration. They  are,  indeed,  too  often  mixed  up  with  low, 
hypocritical  self-seekers  who  make  the  temperance  cause  a 
mere  lever  to  raise  money,  but  that  does  not  detract  from 
the  sterhng  devotion  of  these  noble  souls.  And  while  I 
differ  from  them  altogether  in  my  views,  and  am  thoroughly 
convinced  they  are  doing  unmeasured  harm  to  the  com- 
munity by  retarding  practical  reform  and  disseminating 
pernicious  principles,  at  the  same  time  I  would  not  refrain 
from  J  ielding  this  honest  and  hearty  tribute  to  their  inten- 
tions, and  disclaim  any  personal  reproach  while  criticising 
the  system  they  advocate. 

THE  MOEAL  PHASE   OF  THE  QUESTION. 

2.  The  prudential  question  being  thus  treated,  I  turn  to 
the  moral  question  before  us :  "  Ought  the  plan  of  total  ab- 
stinence to  be  adopted  ?  "  Is  it  a  healthful  and  legitimate 
method  of  doing  away  with  drunkenness  ?  A  man  stands  at 
a  great  disadvantage  who  argues  in  behalf  of  his  belief  that 
the  total-abstinence  system  is  immoral,  because  he  at  once 
ex[)Oses  himself  to  the  assaults  of  slanderers  who  impugn 
his  motives  and  deny  his  honesty.  Radicalism  has  so  ruth- 
lessly mobbed  down  independent  thought  by  its  intimidating 
processes  that  editors  who  have  no  faith  in  the  total-absti- 
nence system  still  uphold  it  in  their  columns,  and  ministers 
deem  it  prudent  to  say  nothing  against  a  cause  so  popular 
in  religious  circles.  Men  are  loath  to  come  forward  and  be 
bespattered  with  mud  thrown  in  the  name  of  truth  and  god- 
liness.   They  are  loath  to  lose  the  support  and  good- will  of 


16  3fodercdion  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

the  many  whose  fanaticism  despises  argument  and  brooks 
no  opposition.  Hence,  if  any  one  is  constrained  to  speak, 
he  is  tempted  to  come  forward  as  a  humble  apologist  and 
modestly  plead  his  cause  with  many  concessions  and 
compromises.  Surely  this  is  not  for  the  advantage  of  the 
truth. 

In  this  address  I  take  no  apologetic  position.  I  carry  the 
war  into  Africa.  I  have  no  contest  with  men,  but  with 
false  principles.  I  assert  that  the  total-abstinence  system  is 
false  in  its  philosophy,  contrary  to  revealed  religion,  and 
harmful  to  the  interests  of  our  country.  I  charge  upon  this 
system  the  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land  and  a  general 
demoralization  among  religious  communities.  And  I  call 
upon  sound-minded,  thinking  men  to  stop  the  enormities  of 
this  false  system  by  uniting  iu  reasonable  and  wholesome 
measures  for  the  suppression  of  drunkenness,  for  the  lack  of 
which  this  false  system  has  all  its  present  success.  Between 
fanaticism  on  the  one  hand  and  licentiousness  on  the  other 
there  ought  to  be  a  large  mass  of  solid  folk,  whose  union 
and  efficiency  would  moderate  and  reduce,  if  not  destroy, 
both  extremes. 

1.  The  first  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  system  is 
in  tuinirg  a  medicinal  prescription  into  a  bill  of  fare  for  all 
mankind.  That  a  drunkard  should  carefully  avoid  every 
form  of  alcoholic  drink  nobody  can  deny.  He  is  a  dis- 
eased man,  and  his  restoration  depends  on  this  restric- 
tion. Now,  by  what  logic  does  this  man's  duty  become  mine? 
Because  I  have  admitted  total  abstinence  as  a  correct  princi- 
ple in  his  case,  am  1  bound  to  admit  it  as  a  correct  principle  for 
all  f  Are  the  sick  to  be  the  norm  of  the  well?  Is  the  mat 
ter  of  diet  to  be  regulated  by  the  needs  of  the  drunkard  ? 
Why  nor,  then,  by  the  needs  of  the  dyspeptic  ?  Ah !  but  (say 
they)  it  is  to  save  you  from  becoming  a  drunkard.  Well,  is 
the  logic  any  way  improved  by  this  explanation  ?  You  would 
put  me  on  a  sick-regimen  to  keep  me  from  becoming  sick  ! 
Because  total  abstinence  is  absolutely  necessary  to  a  drunk- 
ard's recovery,  you  would  make  it  necessary  to  one  who  is 
not  a  drunkard.  Do  you  not  see  that,  if  you  are  going  to 
prove  your  latter  proposition,  you  must  have  another  premise 


A  Calm  Vieio  of  the  Temperance  Question.        IT 

than  jour  former  one  ?  The  two  are  wholly  uncounected.  It 
is  an  oflence  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  community  to  spread 
over  it  the  restriction  of  the  drunkard,  as  it  would  be  to  im- 
prison all  the  community  with  the  imprisonment  of  the  thief, 
lest  by  liberty  they  should  all  fall  to  thieving. 

DOES  MODERATE   DRIXKIJ^G  LEAD  TO  DRUXKE:N'NESS? 

2.  A  second  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  theory  is 
its  assumption  that  moderate  drinking  leads  to  drunkenness. 
The  millions  upon  millions  of  our  race  who  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  drink  wine,  and  who  never  knew  drunkenness, 
stand  up  against  this  atrocious  dogma.  And  yet  this  dogma 
has  actually  become  an  axiom  with  the  total-abstinence  re- 
formers, and  they  would  disdain  to  argue  it.  They  are  so 
determined  to  have  it  true  that  they  have  performed  the 
paradoxical  operation  of  putting  the  moderate  drinker  in  the 
place  of  the  drunkard  as  the  criminal  to  be  punished  with 
scorn  and  contumely.  This  strange  mixing  of  things  reminds 
me  of  the  calhng  good  evil  and  evil  good  which  a  high  au- 
thority makes  a  mark  of  very  deep  depravity.  You  will  find 
that  the  principal  shafts  of  the  total -abstinence  literature 
are  directed  not  at  the  drunkard,  but  at  the  moderate 
drinker.  The  drunkard  is  pitied  and  coddled,  while  the 
moderate  drinker  is  scourged.  Now,  this  sort  of  moral  jug- 
glery is  not  beneficial  to  the  community.  It  distorts  and 
perverts  judgment,  and  involves  moral  distinciious  in  cha- 
otic confusion.  It  overthrows  the  ordinary  reason  that  is  so 
useful  in  all  the  relations  of  life,  and  leads  men  to  clannish 
obedience  to  some  ruling  mind.  It  is  the  old  trick  of  the 
Jesuits,  to  weary  the  mind  in  mazes,  so  that  it  may  in  sheer 
fatigue  seek  to  be  guided  by  them. 

3.  A  third  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  theory  is  its 
want  of  discrimination  between  things  that  differ.  Every- 
thing that  has  alcohol  in  it  must  be  tabooed.  As  if  all  the 
drinks  that  had  alcohol  in  them  were  of  the  same  efiect  when 
drunk !  Brandy  and  hock-wine  and  lager-beer  are  all  alike 
the  devil's  poison,  and  must  be  banished  from  the  lips  of  all 
true  men.  This  assault  upon  common  knowledge  is  a  blun- 
der that  has  the  proportions  of  a  crime.     To  say  that  cer- 


18  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

tain  drinks  that  are  wholesome  and  beneficial  are  the  same 
as '  certain  drinks  that  are  pernicious  and  destructive  is  a 
moral  outrage  which  the  whole  community  should  indig- 
nantly repel.  Beers  and  unbrandied  wines  are  promoters  of 
health  and  strength  when  used  judiciously,  especially  by 
those  who  have  not  robust  health.  They  are  tonic,  anti- 
scorbutic, and  gently  stimulating  to  the  digestion.  As  Dr» 
Parkes,  who  is  a  strong  opposer  of  the  use  of  distilled  liquors, 
says :  "■  For  the  large  class  of  people  who  live  on  the  confines 
of  health,  whose  digestion  is  feeble,  circulation  languid,  and 
nervous  system  too  excitable,"  mild  wines  and  malt  liquors 
are  beneficial.  The  fact  is  that  (as  another  writer  well  says) 
outside  of  the  sick-room  the  distilled  liquors  are  compara- 
tively noxious,  the  fermented  comparatively  harmless.  What 
we  desire  to  emphasize  is  that  the  two  classes  of  drinks  are 
altogether  different  in  their  character  and  effect,  and  that  a 
theory  which  destroys  that  difference  has  therein  a  moral 
stain. 

4.  A  fourth  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  system  is 
its  assertion  that  all  drinks  that  contain  alcohol  are  poison ; 
that  the  presence  of  alcohol  thus  justifies  the  confounding  of 
different  sorts  of  drinks  just  referred  to.  Dr.  Anstie  has 
clearly  shown  that  alcohol  in  small  quantities  is  not  a  poison 
but  a  true  food,  and  that  it  is  a  stimulant  to  the  system  in 
precisely  the  same  sense  as  that  in  which  food  is  a  stimulant. 
He  has  shown  that  there  is  an  essential  difference  between  the 
effects  of  large  and  small  quantities  of  alcohol — a  difference 
of  liind  and  not  of  degree.  The  effect  of  the  small  quantity, 
he  says,  is  often  beneficial ;  the  effect  of  the  large  or  narcotic 
quantity  is  injurious.  Dr.  Binz  defines/oorZ  as  both  building 
up  the  tissues  and  supplying  the  warmth  and  vital  force  ne- 
cessary for  the  body's  functions,  and  he  shows  that,  while 
small  quantities  of  alcohol  have  not  the  former  quality,  they 
have  the  latter ;  and  he  further  shows  that  alcohol  in  mode- 
rate quantities  is  entirely  assimilated  in  the  human  system. 
In  the  light  wines  and  beers,  where  alcohol  forms  only  from 
three  to  ten  per  cent,  of  its  liquid,  we  have  the  alcohol  in  the 
form  best  adapted  for  this  beneficial  effect,  while  in  brandies, 
rums,  gins,  whiskeys,  and  all  distilled  liquors  the  alcohol  is 


A  Calm  View  of  the  Temperance  Q^iestlon.        19 

in  dangerous  proportions  for  a  beverage.  To  say  that  every- 
thing containing  alcohol  is  a  poison  is,  therefore,  a  false 
assertion,  as  false  as  to  say  that  fruit  is  poisonous  because 
prussic  acid,  which  is  a  deadly  poison,  is  found  in  it.  Nature 
has  in  her  alembic  turned  a  powerful  and  dangerous  element 
into  a  beneficial  minister  to  human  wants,  and  all  nations 
have  recognized  this  vital  difierence  between  a  moderate 
and  an  excessive  use  of  stimulants,  and  have  testified  to  the 
wisdom  of  using  nature's  provision  without  abusing  it. 

THE  PLEDGE  AS  A  STRAIT-JACKET. 

5.  A  fifth  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  system  is  its 
dependence  upon  a  contract  rather  than  on  a  moral  sense- 
Instead  of  regulating  a  man  from  within,  it  would  ap.'ly  a 
strait-jacket.  Instead  of  allowing  a  free  play  of  the  man's 
individuality,  and  then  endeavoring  to  instruct  and  educate 
the  man's  reason,  it  would  in  a  moment  of  the  man's  emer- 
gency tie  up  his  conscience  with  a  pledge,  which,  when  the 
emergency  is  past,  he  will  bear  irksomely  and  endeavor  to 
nullify  or  evade.  This  is  a  most  pernicious  instrument  for 
debauching  the  conscience.  In  the  first  place,  it  manufac- 
tures a  new  sin,  always  a  dangerous  experiment,  bringing 
about  a  reaction  which  sweeps  the  soul  into  real  sin  from  its 
experience  in  committing  the  constructed  sin ;  and,  secondly, 
it  gives  a  ready  excuse  to  the  conscience  against  any  tnoral 
argument  for  temperance  by  covering  it  with  a  suspicion  of 
conventionality.  The  pledge  is  always  an  injury  and  never 
a  help  to  a  true  morality.  It  is  a  substitute  for  principle.' 
It  is  a  sign,  not  of  weakness  (for  we  are  all  of  us  weak 
enough),  but  of  readiness  to  reform.  The  true  reform 
would  demand  a  change  of  the  underlying  principles  of  life. 
That  the  pledge-taker  refuses  to  make.  Instead  of  that  he 
reforms  the  surface.  Instead  of  turning  the  stream  into  a 
new  channel,  he  contents  himself  with  throwing  up  earthen 
dikes  to  prevent  an  overflow.  You  can  get  thousands  to 
sign  the  pledge  where  you  can  get  one  to  reform.  Of  course 
the  pledge  is  not  kept,  except  in  the  cases  where  it  was  not 
needed,  where  the  reform  took  the  place  of  the  pledge,  where 
the  man  would  have  reformed  without  any  pledge.    Surely 


20  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

such  a  wholesale  defiling  of  promises  is  a  profane  dealing 
with  sacred  things,  and  marks  a  very  corrupt  system.  Man's 
moral  nature  is  not  to  be  curbed  by  pledges.  His  outward 
conduct  may  be  restrained  by  imposed  law,  but  so  far  forth 
as  tbat  conduct  has  amoral  element  in  it,  no  action  of  the 
man  himself  can  affect  it  except  a  moral  reformation.  Gov- 
€rument,  by  its  threatened  punishment,  may  stop  a  man's 
drinking  so  long  as  he  thinks  himself  in  danger  of  punish- 
ment, but  a  pledge  that  has  no  punishment  for  its  breaking 
will  command  no  obedience  while  the  moral  convictions  re- 
main unchanged.    It  is  only  an  invitation  to  further  sin. 

6.  The  sixth  and  last  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence 
system  to  which  I  shall  refer  is  one  which  I  bring  forward 
not  as  a  philosopher  nor  a  moralist,  but  as  a  Christian  who 
believes  in  the  divine  authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  This 
error  I  have  already  adverted  to  in  my  prudential  argument, 
and,  therefore,  need  not  enlarge  upon  here.  It  is  impossible 
to  condemn  all  drinking  of  wine  as  either  sinful  or  improper 
without  bringing  reproach  upon  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and 
his  apostles.  There  has  been  an  immense  amount  of  wrig- 
gling by  Christian  writers  on  this  subject  to  get  away  fi'om 
this  alternative,  but  there  it  stands  impregnable.  Jesus  did 
use  wine.  I  will  not  waste  my  time  in  proving  this  proposi- 
tion, and  answering  those  wild  basM-bazouks  of  controversy 
who  assert,  with  childlike  confidence  and  simplicity,  that  the 
Bible  wines  were  unfermented  grape-juice.  Their  learned 
ignorance  is  fairly  splendid  with  boldness.  They  disarm 
criticism  by  their  overwhelming  dash.  Such  little  questions 
as  why  the  epithet  ivine-bibber  should  have  been  opprobrious  ? 
why  deacons  should  not  be  given  to  much  wine  ?  why  the 
Corinthian  communicants  should  become  drunken  f  why 
the  apostles  at  Pentecost  should  have  been  accused  of  wine- 
drinking  as  the  cause  of  their  strange  utterances  ? — ail  such 
trifling  questions  they  utterly  disdain  to  notice  in  the  magni- 
:ficent  sweep  of  their  assertion.  It  is  a  small  thing,  too,  with 
them  that  the  apostles  never  hint  at  two  kinds  of  wine,  a 
good,  unfermented  wine,  and  a  bad,  fermented  one,  when  it 
would  have  been  so  easy  and  natural  for  our  Lord  or  for 
Paul  to  say,  "  Drink  only  the  unfermented  wine."    Instead  of 


A  Calm  View  of  the  Temperance  Question.        21 

that  they  lead  us  into  great  danger  by  their  unguarded  re- 
marks about  wine,  as  if  there  were  but  one  sort;  nay,  worse 
than  that,  Paul  even  tells  the  deacons  not  to  drink  too  much 
wine.  Did  Paul  mean  the  fermented  wine?  Then  he  al- 
lowed the  deacons  to  use  it  as  a  beverage.  Did  he  mean 
unfermented  wine  ?  Then  why  did  he  limit  the  amount  ? 
This  dilemma  and  ail  the  other  arguments  from  the  Scrip- 
tures are  as  mere  cobwebs  to  the  lances  of  these  vahant 
knights,  who  are  too  free  and  fiery  to  be  checked  by  reason 
or  overcome  by  syllogism.  To  a  foot-pilgrim  like  myself, 
however,  these  Scriptures  are  convincing  and  end  the  con- 
troversy, and,  therefore,  I  have  to  charge  the  total-absti- 
nence propaganda  with  wresting  the  Scriptures  and  de- 
spising their  authority. 

THE   BIBLICAL  AKGUMENT  ANALYZED. 

I  know  that  there  is  a  wing  of  their  army  which  acknow- 
ledges all  that  I  have  said  of  Scripture  record,  and  which 
holds  that  times  are  so  changed  that  the  Scripture  examples 
and  precepts  are  now  obsolete,  that  they  were  made  for  an 
Oriental  people  eighteen  centuries  ago,  and  are  wholly  inap- 
plicable in  the  great  Occident  in  this  nineteenth  century. 
But  this  wing  of  the  host  is  a  very  weak  wing,  and  is  often 
very  thoroughly  snubbed  by  the  loud  leaders,  who  count 
their  p  )sition  a  giving-up  of  the  contest,  as  indeed  it  is. 
For  who  will  beheve  that  Christ  and  his  apostles,  on  great 
moral  questions  and  matters  of  moral  conduct,  gave  example 
and  precept  that  would  not  last  ?  The  argument  runs  this 
way  :  Christ  and  his  apostles  said  that  we  may  drink  wine, 
but  that  was  a  local  and  temporary  matter;  now,  under  new 
circumstances,  we  must  not.  Christ  and  his  apostles  said 
that  Christians  must  not  be  mixed  with  the  ungodly  world,  hut 
that  was  local  and  temporary,  when  idolatry  was  rife;  now, 
under  new  circumstances.  Christians  and  the  ungodly  world 
may  so  intermingle  that  you  can't  tell  one  from  the  other. 
The  apostle  of  Christ  said  that  women  must  keep  silence  in 
the  churches,  but  that  was  local  and  temporary,  when  wo- 
men were  not  much  more  than  slaves;  now,  under  new  cir- 
cumstances, women  may  mount  platform  and  pulpit  as  ex- 


22  3Ioderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

borters  and  preachers,  for  verily,  uuder  the  Gospel,  there 
is  no  difference  between  male  and  female  !  I  said,  who  will 
believe  all  this?  Alas!  there  are  many  who  do.  And  I 
charge  them  with  undermining  the  authority  of  the  Word  of 
Ood.  If  moral  questions  that  are  not  in  the  Scripture  are  to 
Idc  thus  treated,  who  is  to  draw  the  line  where  you  are  to 
stop  ?  Why  may  not  the  Christian  merchant  say  of  the  New 
Testament  command,  "  Lienot  one  to  another  :  This  is  local 
and  temporary,  when  trade  was  sluggish  and  men's  minds 
Tvere  dull  ?  Now,  under  new  circumstances,  when  emulation 
needs  every  help  and  Wall  Street  sharpens  men's  wits,  you 
must  lie  or  go  under.  This  departure  from  the  Bible  senti- 
ment and  example  on  moral  conduct  in  us  who  believe  in  the 
Bible  is  a  very  dangerous  thing.  Of  course,  for  the  Bud- 
dhists who  have  lately  become  fashionable  in  our  country  it 
is  of  no  consequence.  And  to  them  this  division  of  my  ar- 
gument is  not  addressed. 

I  have  now  endeavored,  in  a  very  brief  way,  to  point  out 
the  reasons  why  the  total-abstinence  system  as  a  cure  for  in- 
temperance will  not  and  ought  not  to  be  adopted.  Of  course 
I  am  therefore  bound  to  propose  a  system  that  ought  to  be 
adopted.  I  do  not  dodge  the  issue.  No  man  is  more  keenly 
alive  to  the  frightful  ravages  of  drunkenness  than  I  am,  and 
it  is  because  the  prevailing  system  of  a  total-abstinence  cru- 
sade is  hindering  the  cure  of  the  evil  by  keeping  just  methods 
from  the  field  and  by  disgusting  men's  minds  with  the  very 
name  of  temperance,  so  cruelly  bemired,  that  I  denounce  it, 
and  ask  good  men  to  rally  around  a  truer  and  purer  stand- 
ard. 

EXCESS   AXD  MODEEATIOX. 

The  right  system  must  be  one  that  recognizes  practically 
the  difference  between  excess  and  moderation,  and  the  diffe- 
rence between  injurious  and  harmless  drinks,  and  will  thus 
appeal  to  the  common  sense  of  reasonable  and  thinking 
men.  It  must  be  a  system  that  deals  honestly  with  history, 
science,  and  Scripture,  and  does  not  invent  theories  and  then 
support  them  by  garbled  quotations  and  imaginary  facts. 
It  must  be  a  manly  system,  that  has  no  cant  or  foolery  of 


A  Calm  View  of  the  Tern iier mice  Question.        23 

orders  and  ribbon3  degrading  a  matter  of  high  principle  to 
the  hocus-pocus  of  a  child's  play.  Such  a  system  would  be 
found  in  the  exclusion  of  distilled  liquor  from  common  use  as 
a  beverage  both  by  public  opinion  and  by  law,  and  the  wise 
regulation  in  society  and  in  the  state  of  the  use  of  vinous 
and  malt  liquors.  Society  should  put  away  all  the  drinking 
usages  that  lead  to  excess,  such  as  furnishing  many  wines  at 
an  entertainment,  or  *'  treating"  others,  or  putting  brandied 
wines  upon  the  table  ;  and  the  state  should  limit  the  number 
of  licensed  sellers  to  at  most  the  proportion  of  one  to  a  thou- 
sand inhabitants  of  each  town,  and  these  sellers  should  be 
under  heavy  bonds  not  to  sell  to  minors  or  drunkards,  an^l 
not  to  allow  disreputable  characters  to  gather  at  their 
places.  The  law  should  likewise  make  the  collection  of  evi- 
dence against  a  licensed  seller  easy,  and  the  penalty  of 
breaking  the  law  should  be  imprisonment  as  well  as  fine. 
On  a  basis  like  this,  that  does  not  sweepingly  condemn  every 
drink  that  has  alcohol  in  it,  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
could  work  accordantly,  and  therefore  effectively.  The 
wild  radicalism  of  the  teetotalers  is  just  what  the  rumsellers 
and  their  advocates  enjoy.  They  know  that  this  absurd  ex- 
travagance disintegrates  the  army  of  order  and  renders  it 
powerless;  that  so  long  as  temperance  is  made  to  mean 
''  total  abstinence  from  everything  that  can  intoxicate,"  the 
great  multitude  of  order-loving  men  will  shrink  from  joining 
any  temperance  movement,  and  hence  these  wholesale  de- 
stroyers of  the  race  can  go  on  in  their  nefarious  work  with 
impunity.  Now,  what  is  needed  is  the  union  of  all  good  men 
who  desire  to  stop  the  fearful  drunkenness  of  the  laud  with 
its  attendant  crimes  and  misery.  That  union  never  can  be 
effected  on  the  principles  of  the  total-abstinence  propaganda. 
But  it  can  be  effected  on  the  principles  of  truth  and  common 
S3nse,  and  they  who  prevent  this  union  by  their  tenacious 
adherence  to  a  false  and  fanatical  system  are  responsible 
before  God  and  man  for  the  spreading  curse. 

There  is  no  more  important  question  before  the  American 
people  to-day  than  this  :  ''  How  shall  we  stay  this  surging 
tide  of  intemperance  ?  "  and  it  is  to  be  answered  on  one  side 
by  the  practical  voice  of  society,  and  on  the  other  by  the 


24  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

edicts  of  our  legislatures.  We  should  act  with  an  even  mind 
on  so  grave  a  subject,  and  see  to  it  that  every  step  we  take 
is  solidly  founded  on  right  reason.  We  should  urge  before 
our  legislatures  plans  that  are  fi^ee  from  the  taint  of  crude 
prejudice,  and  instinct  with  practical  wisdom  ;  and  when  we 
do  this  we  shall  be  surprised  to  see  how  many  whom  we  took 
to  be  enemies  there  are  who  are  ready  to  join  us  in  the  work 
arid  establish  foundations  of  order  and  peace  in  the  land  that 
shall  save  us  from  a  moral  slough. 

COXCLUSIOX. 

Let  me,  in  conclusion,  distinctly  say  that  I  do  not  oppose  the 
principle  of  total  abstinence  from  all  that  intoxicates /or  the 
individual.  Every  man  is  at  liberty  to  abstain  if  he  will,  and 
it  is  his  duty  to  abstain  if  his  own  conscience  command  it. 
That  against  which  I  contend,  and  which  I  hold  up  as  the 
hindrance  to  true  reform  and  the  promoter  of  the  drunkard's 
cause,  is  the  total-abstinence  crusade  or  propaganda— thQ 
forcing  total  abstinence  upon  the  community  as  the  duty  of 
all ;  the  putting  under  the  ban  every  one  who  does  not  fol- 
low that  standard  ;  the  insisting  upon  total  abstinence  as  the 
only  safety  against  drunkenness.  It  is  this  headlong  move- 
ment, which  virtually  cries  ''  The  Koran  or  the  sword !"  and 
tramples  alike  on  reason  and  Scripture  in  its  blind  rush— it 
is  this  and  not  private  total  abstinence  against  which  I  in- 
veigh. And  let  me  also  repeat  that  I  am  attacking  a  sys- 
tem and  not  persons.  I  have  no  war  with  men,  but  with  er- 
ror. I  can  honor  the  men  who  uphold  a  pernicious  system, 
for  I  can  believe  in  their  purity  of  motive  and  singleness  of 
aim.  And  for  this  reason  I  the  more  earnestly  and  hopefully 
urge  them  to  consider  their  ways  and  abandon  a  course 
which  is  only  confirming  the  dreadful  curse  we  all  abhor  and 
desire  to  remove. 


A  REVIEW  OF  DR.  CROSEY. 


By   rev.    dr.   mark   HOPKINS, 

Ex-Presideni  Williams  CoUege,  Jla^s. 


THE  recent  lecture  by  Dr.  Crosby,  entitled  '' A  Calm  View 
of  the  Temperance  Question, ''  is  divided  into  four 
parts:  1.  Preliminary  Propositions;  2.  Tbe  Prudential 
Question  ;  3.  The  Moral  Question  ;  and  4.  His  own  System. 
Of  these  each  requires  attention. 

His  prehminary  propositions  are  three,  and  of  these  we  are 
compelled  to  take  exception  to  the  very  first.  This  is,  that 
"the  object  of  temperance  societies  is  to  prevent  drunken- 
ness.'' That  is  one  object,  but  is  so  far  from  being  the  only 
one  that  the  statement  is  inadequate  and  misleading.  It 
implies  that  the  effect  cf  alcoholic  drinks  up  to  the  point  of 
drunkenness  is  not  injurious,  and  that  unless  moderate 
drinking  leads  to  drunkenness,  which  he  denies,  it  does  not 
come  within  the  scope  of  temperance  societies. 

We  hold,  on  the  other  hand,  that,  in  our  climate  and 
under  our  present  inherited  conditions,  the  health  of  the 
human  system  is  better  without  alcoholic  stimulation  than 
with  it,  and  therefore  that  temperance,  taking  Dr.  Crosby's 

25 


26  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahsthience, 

own  definition  of  it  as  ^'  a  grand  moral  subjection  of  the 
whole  man  to  the  sway  of  reason,"  would  exclude  such  stimu- 
lation. We  hold  with  him  that  temperance  permits  only 
such  use  of  anything  whatever  as  will  best  promote  the  well- 
being  of  the  whole  man.  On  this  point  we  remember  the 
statements  of  Bishop  Potter,  and  men  like  him,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  reformation,  of  the  eifect  upon  their  health 
of  giving  up  wire;  we  recall  the  regimen  of  Samson,  and 
the  uniform  testimony  of  the  trainers  of  athletes ;  we  note 
the  fact  that  in  England  a  total-abstainer  can  have  his  life 
insured  at  a  less  rate  than  a  moderate  drinker ;  we  have  the 
testimony  of  physicians*  that  what  they  call  an  ^'insane 
diathesis"  is  produced  by  moderate  drinking,  and  that  this 
may  fail  to  reveal  itself  till  the  second  or  third  generation ; 
we  take  what  is  known  of  the  stimulating  quality  of  our 
climate  and  of  the  adulteration  of  alcoholic  drinks  in  this 
country,  and  we  conclude  that  the  object  of  temperance  so- 
cieties is  broader  than  the  prevention  of  drunkenness. 

The  second  proposition  of  Dr.  Crosby  is  that  '^  the  cardi- 
nal principle  of  these  ^societies  is  total  abstinence  from  all 
that  can  intoxicate."  Yes,  as  a  beverage.  We  agree  to  the 
use  of  alcohol  as  a  medicine  and  in  the  arts.  Here,  how- 
ever, it  ought  to  be  said  that  these  societies  were  formed 
and  this  principle  was  adopted  to  meet  an  emergency. 
Fifty  years  ago  it  came  upon  the  country  almost  with  the 
suddenness  of  a  cry  of  fire  that  the  whole  fabric  of  our  so- 
ciety, moral,  social,  and  civil,  was  in  danger  from  the  use  of 
intoxicating  drinks.  The  alarm  was  not  sounded  too  soon, 
nor  was  the  danger  over-estimated.  A  mighty  work  was  to 
be  done.  The  evil  pervaded  church  and  state  alike.  There 
were  vested  rights  and  drinking  customs ;  wines  for  the  rich, 
whiskey  and  cider-brandy  for  the  poor,  and  adulterated 
liquors  -,  and  the  question  was  not  about  abstract  principles, 
or  what  might  be  right  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  but 
how  to  meet  a  present  danger.  The  grand  men  of  that  day 
—the  Beechers  and  Notts  -and  Potters — felt  their  way,  and 

*See  a  recent  pamphlet  on  "The  Insane  Diathesis,"  p.  15,  by  Henry  P. 
Stearns.  M.D.,  of  Hartford. 


A  Review  of  Dr.  Crosby,  ^1 

at  length  reached  the  principle  of  total  ahstineDce  as  their 
only  sheet-anchor.  We  are  fighting  the  same  battle,  with 
much  gained,  but  still  under  similar  conditions.  The  house 
is  still  on  fire.  How  shall  we  put  it  out?  We  say  with 
water.  Those  who  have  labored  longest  and  made  most 
sacrifices  in  this  cause  say  that  the  danger  can  be  best  met 
by  total  abstinence  on  the  part  of  the  individual  and  by 
prohibition  on  the  part  of  the  State.  To  each  of  these  Dr. 
Crosby  objects  not  only,  but  he  strongly  condemns  them. 

The  third  proposition  of  Dr.  Crosby  is  that  ^'  total  absti- 
nence, if  adopted  by  all,  will  prevent  drunkenness."  With 
this  we  heartily  agree. 

In  objecting  to  total  abstinence  under  his  "Prudential 
Question "  Dr.  Crosby  says  many  things  with  which  we 
agree.  We  agree  that  we  ought  to  adopt  a  "  practicable  '' 
plan — not,  however,  as  he  says,  one  "that  will  be  received 
by  men  in  general,"  but  one  in  which  we  can  worli  most 
effectively.  Wo  agree  that  we  ought  to  work  with  others 
who  differ  from  us  so  far  as  we  conscientiously  can.  If  any 
have  failed  to  work  with  Dr.  Crosby  up  to  this  point  it  is  to 
be  regretted;  but  since  he  does  not  object  to  ^'  total  absti- 
nence for  the  individual,"  and  agrees  that  that  would  be  a 
sure  preventive  for  drunkenness,  we  invite  him,  if  he  has 
not  already  done  so,  to  join  us  in  bringing  over  to  that  as 
many  individuals  as  he  can.  We  agree  with  him  in  what 
he  says  of  conscience  as  too  often  '^mere  obstinacy  of  opin- 
ion," and  about  "fanaticisms"  and  false  martyrdoms;  ar.d 
if  in  working  with  us,  as  he  "  conscientiously^''  must,  he  can- 
not bring  men  quite  over  to  total  abstinence;  we  do  conscien- 
tiously wish  him  success  in  bringing  them  as  far  as  he  can. 
We  agree  with  him  in  what  he  says  of  the  original 
and  proper  meaning  of  the  word  "temperance,''  and 
of  the  change  in  its  use,  but  not  in  his  apparent  irrita- 
tion about  it;  or  in  his  charge  of  intentional  deception.  The 
change  has  come  by  a  law  of  language  which  makes  a  gene- 
ral term  specific  when  a  particular  use  of  it  becomes  pro- 
minent. It  was  thus  that  certain  writings  came  to  be  called 
Scriptures^  as  if  there  were  no  other  writings;  and  also 


S§  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

the  Bihle^  which  means  the  book,  as  if  there  were  do  3ther 
book.  So  when  an  Enghsh  sportsman  shoots  a  partridge  he 
says  he  has  shot  a  bird,  as  if  tbere  were  no  other  birds. 
Changes  of  this  kind  constantly  occur  with  no  conscious 
agency  of  any  one,  and  there  is  no  more  reason  for  suppos- 
ing that  any  advocate  of  total  abstinence  ever  used  the  word 
temperance  in  this  secondary  sense  with  an  intention  to  de- 
ceive than  tbere  is  that  Dr.  Crosby  so  used  it  when  he  en- 
titled his  lecture  "  A  Calm  View  of  the  Temperance  Ques- 
tion." Some  deception  may  have  been  wrought  in  this  way, 
but  Dr.  Crosby's  view  of  it  seems  to  us  greatly  exaggerated. 
We  cannot  believe  that  a  word  which  has  thus  found  a  second- 
ary meaning  by  a  natural  law  will  be  regarded  as  ^'  a  false 
flag,"  or  that  it  *'  will  disgust  and  alienate  true  and  en- 
lightened souls." 

We  agree  further  with  Dr.  Crosby,  and  thank  him  for 
stating  it,  that  "  the  use  of  a  false  argument  always  reacts 
against  the  user."  We  presume  he  is  right  in  res])ect  to 
'' mw5f  preserved  from  fermentation."  We  agree  with  him 
that  the  Scriptures  ought  not  to  be  '^  twisted,"  but  fail  to 
see  how  it  would  be  ''a  fatal  blow  to  tbe  total-abstinence 
system,"  or  any  blow  at  all,  if  it  should  be  proved  that  they 
speak  of  only  one  kind  of  wine.  Many  advocates  of  total 
abstinence,  perhaps  the  majority,  agree  with  Dr.  Crosby  on 
this  point,  but  find  in  that  no  reason  for  abating  their  zeal 
in  the  cause. 

In  treating  of  the  prudential  question  up  to  this  point 
Dr  Crosby  finds  ''  three  elements  of  deception  entering  into 
^  their  cause ' :  the  use  of  the  word  temperance  for  a  totally 
different  thing,  the  fable  about  unfermented  wine,  and  the 
violent  twisting  of  the  Scriptures."  He  then  says  :  "  Now  I 
unhesitatingly  afiQrm  that  a  cause  having  such  falsehoods  for 
its  main  supports  can  never  be  accepted  by  the  public." 

Finding  thus  his  tirst  reason  why  tbe  plan  of  <*  total  absti- 
nence will  not  be  adopted  by  the  people  "  to  be  that  it  is  sup- 
ported by  falsehoods,  Dr.  Crosby  states  as  his  second  rea- 
son ''its  unmanUness."  Under  this  head  the  main  point 
of  his  argument  is  against  legal  prohibition.    Total  prohibi- 


A  Review  of  Dr.  Croshy.  29 

tion  he  calls  'Hhe  cardinal  doctrlue  of  the  total -abstinence 
people,''  whereas  we  are  not  aware  that,  as  total-abstinence 
people,  it  is  their  doctrine  at  all.  The  two  are  sought  for 
different  ends,  and  by  different  means.  Total  abstinence 
we  seek  through  voluntary  action,  for  the  promotion  of  in- 
dividual virtue  and  of  the  general  good.  Legal  prohibition 
we  seek  for  as  a  means  of  guarding  our  rights.  Let  the  law 
cease  to  appeal  to  us  by  taxing  us  for  the  support  of  pauper- 
ism and  Clime  caused  by  the  selling  of  intoxicating  drinks, 
and  we  will  cease  to  appeal  to  t!ie  law.  The  question  then 
is  not  at  all  whether  legal  prohibition  is  opposed  to  manli- 
ness and  the  cultivation  of  '*  self-control,"  but  whether  a 
voluntary  position  of  total  abstinence,  prohibition  or  no  pro- 
hibition, IS  so  opposed.  We  have  been  accustomed  to  think, 
and  do  now,  that  we  have  had  few  finer  illustrations  in  mod- 
ern times  of  heroic  self-denial,  and  moral  courage,  and  true 
manhood  than  were  seen  in  Governor  Briggs  and  men  like 
him,  who  planted  the  standard  of  total  abstinence  in  Wash- 
ington, and  stood  faithfully  by  it  for  so  many  years.  Does 
Dr.  Crosby  charge  unmanliness  upon  these  men,  or  upon 
the  merchant  princes  of  our  day,  who,  with  every  facility  for 
the  safest  and  most  refined  forms  of  indulgence,  stand  firmly 
by  the  same  banner  because  they  think  they  can  thus  best 
arrest  the  ravages  of  intemperance  ?  But  while  we  find  Dr. 
Crosby  thus  arguing  against  legal  prohibition  because  of  the 
unmanliness  it  fosters,  strange  to  say,  we  find  him  farther  on, 
and  with  no  change  that  we  can  see  in  its  relation  to  manli- 
ness, adopting  legal  prohibition  as  the  very  basis  of  his  own 
system ! 

The  third  and  only  other  reason  mentioned  by  Dr. 
Crosby  under  the  prudential  head  why  the  plan  of  total  ab- 
stinence will  not  be  adopted  by  the  people  is  ^Mts  spirit  of 
intimidation.^^  Here,  again,  we  agree  with  Dr.  Crosby— we 
think  with  him  that  intimidation  should  not  be  used.  Espe- 
cially do  we  sympathize  with  him  in  what  he  says  about  the 
use  of  violent  language.  That  such  language  should  ever 
be  used  by  the  advocates  of  total  abstinence  we  regret,  and 
have  not  a  word  of  excuse  to  offer.    We  venture  to  enquire, 


30  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstmence. 

however,  whether  he  has  not  himself  in  the  single  instance 
of  applying  the  term  bulldozing  to  means  of  influence 
wholly  moral  erred  slightly  in  the  same  direction.  We 
may  not  have  caught  the  precise  shade  of  the  meaning  of 
that  word,  but  suppose  it  to  imply  some  reference  to  physi- 
cal forco  either  threatened  or  actually  used,  whereas  it  is 
well  known  that  the  use  of  physical  force,  when  used  at  all, 
has  invariably  been  on  the  other  side. 

The  three  reasous  above  referred  to  are  dwelt  upon  by  Dr. 
Crosby  at  length,  but  are  touched  thus  slightly  by  us  be- 
cause their  force  as  bearing  on  the  point  in  question  depends 
almost  wholly  on  the  truth  of  the  statement  by  him  that 
they  are  the  "  main  supports  of  the  cause  of  total  absti- 
nence." He  says :  "  Now,  I  unhesitatingly  affirm  that  a 
cause  having  such  falsehoods  as  its  main  supports  can 
never  be  accepted  by  the  public."  Again  :  '^  We  have  en- 
deavored to  show  that  the  i)ublic  mind  will  not  receive  a 
system  whose  principal  agencies  have  been  falsehoods  and 
intimidation."  That  these  have  been  the  main  supports  of 
the  total -abstinence  cause  we  wholly  deny,  and  are  aston- 
ished that  such  assertions  should  be  made.  Has  Dr.  Crosby 
never  heard  of  the  statistics  of  intemperance,  so  vast  and  so 
laboriously  gathered,  as  used  for  promoting  this  cause  ?  Has 
he  never  heard  of  the  six  hundred  millions  of  dollars  an- 
nually spent  in  this  country  for  alcoholic  liquors  ?  Has  he 
never  heard  of  the  sixty  thousand  drunkards  who  are  esti- 
mated to  die  annually,  or  '^  of  the  poorhouses,  prisons,  and 
hospitals  filled  with  inmates,  and  the  land  filled  with  widow- 
hood and  orphanage  such  as  no  war  in  modern  times  has 
ever  occasioned"?  Has  he  never  heard  of  entreaties  to 
men  and  of  prayers  to  God  with  tears  and  agony  that  hus- 
bands and  sons  and  brothers  might  be  brought  to  stand  on 
the  firm  ground  of  total  abstinence  !  We  have  before  us, 
and  have  just  referred  to  it,  an  address  to  the  people  of 
Massachusetts  by  the  Massachusetts  Total-Abstinence  So- 
ciety, and  in  that  the  topics  dwelt  on  by  Dr.  Crosby,  main 
supports  though  he  calls  them,  are  not  even  referred  to,  and 
there  is  not  in  it  the  slightest  attempt  at  intimidation. 


A  Review  of  Dr.  Crosby,  31 

But  while  we  thus  deny  what  Dr.  Crosby  says  about  the 
"  principal  agencies  "  relied  on  by  the  friends  of  total  absti- 
nence, and,  if  we  deny  truly,  vacate  the  whole  force  of  what 
he  has  said  on  the  ''  prudential  question,"  we  go  one  step 
further  and  say  that  even  if  his  assertions  on  that  point  were 
true  his  argument  would  be,  as  he  has  said  of  another,  a  com- 
plete nan  sequitur.  For  what  does  he  object  to  ?  Not  to 
total  abstinence,  for  he  says  in  this  connection  :  "  The  total- 
abstinence  scheme  may  be  in  strict  accordance  with  theoreti- 
cal virtue.  It  may  be  the  grand  end  to  which  all  reforming 
processes  should  tend."  Not  to  total  abstinence,  then,  does 
he  object,  but  to  '^falsehoods,"  and  'intimidations,"  and 
attacks  on  manliness.  These  he  regards,  and  justly,  as 
false  methods,  and  he  tells  us  that  *'a  cause  having  such 
falsehoods  as  its  main  supports  can  never  be  accepted  by 
the  pubUc."  But  does  it  follow  because  a  scheme  that  either 
is  or  ''  may  be  in  strict  accordance  with  theoretical  vutue  " 
would  be  rejected  when  supported  only  by  falsehoods  and 
intimidation  would  not  be  received  when  supported  by  truth 
presented  in  love  ?  Not  at  all.  There  is  not  the  most  distant 
connection  between  the  premises  and  the  conclusion.  But 
this  is  Dr.  Crosby's  argument,  and  the  whole  of  it.  Accord- 
ing to  this,  if  we  will  but  accept  deserved  criticism  and  keep 
our  forces  in  order,  looking  well  after  our  Bible-twisters  and 
bulldozers  and  "wild  BasM-Bazouks  of  controversy,"  we 
may  hope  for  success. 

Whether,  then,  the  assertion  of  Dr.  Crosby  that  the  main 
supports  of  our  scheme  are  falsehoods  and  intimidation  be 
false  or  whether  it  be  true,  his  whole  argument  under  the 
prudential  head  amounts  to  absolutely  nothing— perhaps 
even  less,  for  we  think  we  have  seen  somewhere  that ''  a 
false  argument  always  reacts  against  the  user."  We  have 
no  apprehension  from  the  effect  of  such  logic  upon  ''men 
who  have  brains  and  use  them." 

In  passing  to  what  Dr.  Crosby  calls  the  moral  question 
we  find  it  impossible  to  account  for  the  language  he  uses  re- 
specting •'  the  total-abstinence  system,"  except  from  the 
want  of  discriUiination  already  referred  to  between  that  sys- 


32  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstine?ice. 

tern  and  legal  prohibition.  Separated  from  the  ignorance 
and  faults  and  follies  of  its  friends,  ^'  the  total-abstinence 
system  "  is  the  endeavor  to  secure  by  individual  and  asso- 
ciated action,  and  with  their  free  consent,  total  abstinence 
on  the  part  of  individuals  from  iutoxicating  drinks  as  a 
beverage.  This  is  the  system  and  the  whole  of  it.  If  each 
individual  would  assent  to  this  no  wrong  or  harm  would  be 
done,  and  drunkenness  with  its  attending  evils  would 
cease.  Now,  that  Dr.  Crosby  should  charge  upon  this  sys- 
tem, so  understood,  that  it  is  ''immoral,"  "false  in  its 
philosophy,  contrary  to  revealed  religion,  and  harmful  to 
the  interests  of  our  country" — that  he  should  charge 
upon  it  ''  the  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land  and  a 
general  demoralization  among  religious  communities,"  seems 
impossible. 

The  growth  of  drunkenness,  we  had  supposed,  was  due  in 
part  to  the  greed  of  gain,  and  in  part  to  depraved  appetite, 
but  it  seems  we  were  mistaken.  It  is  due  to  the  total-ab- 
stinence system  understood  in  some  way  !  If  this  be  so,  well 
may  Dr.  Crosby  say,  and  he  should  say  it  with  the  voice  of 
a  trumpet,  ''  I  call  upon  sound-minded,  thinking  men  to 
stop  the  enormities  of  this  false*  system."  Precisely  what 
he  had  in  mind  we  do  not  know.  Probably  the  system  of 
legal  prohibition,  or,  possibly,  a  confused  mixture  of  the 
two.  But  we  do  not  ask  legal  prohibition  for  the  promo- 
tion of  total-abstinence,  or  temperance,  or  morality  in  any 
way.  Let  the  law  compel  the  traffic  to  provide  for  its  own 
results,  and  not  to  put  unjustifiable  temptation  in  the  way 
of  the  young,  and  we  ask  of  it  nothing  more.  We  will  then 
go  on  working  in  harmony  with  Dr.  Crosby  on  the  voluntary 
plan,  seeking,  if  possible,  to  bring  individuals  up  to  total 
abstinence,  and  if  not,  as  near  to  it  as  we  can. 

When  Dr.  Crosby  charges  that  the  total-abstinence  sys- 
tem is  immoral  we  know  what  he  means  by  the  moral  ques- 
tion; but  when  he  passes  to  bis  specifications  we  should  be 
glad  to  know  what  he  means  by  a  moral  error.  Error  is 
commonly  supposed  to  belong  to  the  intellect,  but  if  there 
pan  be  moral  error  at  all,  it  must  involve  blame  on  the  part 


A  Eevietv  of  Dr.  Crosby.  33 

of  him  who  holds  it.  If  so,  then  a  man  is  to  blame  for  be- 
lieving that  moderate  drinking  leads  to  drunkenness.  And 
Dr,  Crosby  seems  to  think  so,  for  he  calls  it  an  atrocious 
dogma,  but  whether  he  intends  thus  to  impute  blame  to  all 
who  do  not  agree  with  him  in  his  six  specifications  we  are 
at  a  loss  to  determine. 

'<  The  first  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  system,"  he 
says, 'Ms  in  turning  a  medicinal  prescription  into  a  bill  of 
fare  for  all  mankind."  We  are  not  dealing  with  all  man- 
kind, but  we  do  say  that  here  and  now  most  men,  if  not  all, 
would  be  healthier  and  exert  a  better  influence  if  they  would 
abstain  from  intoxicating  drinks  as  a  beverage.  That  the 
drunkard  should  wholly  abstain  Dr.  Crosby  afQrms,  but  he 
recognizes  no  obligation  on  our  part  to  help  him  by  our  ex- 
ample in  his  mighty  struggle  to  do  this.  He  nowhere  re- 
cognizes, or  alludes  to,  the  great  principle  laid  down  by  the 
apostle  Paul  when  he  said  he  would  eat  no  meat  while  the 
world  should  stand  if  it  would  cause  his  brother  to  offend. 
That  principle  we  kcow  tho  president  of  the  National 
Temperance  Society  and  those  who  act  with  him  regard  as 
one  of  the  great  supports  of  the  cause  they  advocate,  and 
one  that  is  to  be  strongly  urged.  Is  that  a  moral  error  ?  It 
seems  implied  in  what  Dr.  Crosby  says  under  this  head, 
though  doubtless  not  so  intended. 

"  A  second  moral  error  of  the  total- abstinence  theory,"  as 
statod  by  Dr.  Crosby,  "is  its  assumption  that  moderate 
drinking  leads  to  drunkenness."  Taking  the  words  "  mode- 
rate drinking  "  as  they  are  commonly  understood,  we  confess 
to  having  been  in  this  error,  if  so  it  be,  and  hope  we  are  not  to 
blame  for  holding  it  still,  though  it  is  intimated  by  Dr. 
Crosby  that  t?  hold  it  is  '*  a  mark  of  very  deep  depravity," 
and  though  it  is  supported  by  logic  like  the  following: 

All  drunkards  were  first  moderate  drinkers.  *' Millions 
upon  millions  of  our  race  "  have  been  moderate  drinkers  and 
have  not  become  drunkards.  MiUions  of  our  race  have 
been  moderate  drinkers  and  have  become  drunkards ; 
therefore  moderate  drinking  does  not  lead  to  drunkenness. 
Or  take  a  case  wholly  parallel ;  a  miUion  people  have  lived 


34  Moderatmi  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

iu  a  malarial  atmospLere  and  have  not  had  typhoid  fever  ; 
a  hundred  thousand  have  lived  in  the  same  atmosphere  and 
liave  had  it ;  therefore  a  malarious  atmosphere  does  not  pro- 
duce typhoid  fever.  Surely  Dr.  Crosby  cannut  be  ignorant 
of  the  delusive,  and  mocking  principle  there  is  in  all  narcotic 
stimulation  by  which  a  larger  amount  of  the  stimulus  is  con- 
stantly demanded  for  a  given  amount  of  stimulation,  till,  if 
the  stimulus  be  alcohol,  the  moderate  drinker  is  led  oti  un- 
consciously over  the  shaky  ground  of  moderate  drinking 
into  the  "  Serbouian  bog,"  '^  a  gulf  profound,"  of  drunken- 
ness, and  hears  the  mocking  cry  (oh !  how  many  have 
heard  it !) :  '^  Now  extricate  yourself  if  you  can." 

A  third  moral  error  of  the  theory,  we  are  told,  ^'  is  its  want 
of  discrimination  between  things  that  differ."  This  does 
not,  we  suppose,  apply  to  all  things,  but  only  to  the  different 
kinds  of  alcohohc  drinks,  as  brandy  and  hock  wine  and 
other  kinds  mentioned  by  Dr.  Crosby.  We  think  it  de- 
sirable that  discriminations  should  be  made  where  there  is  a 
difference,  especially  where  there  is  so  great  a  difference  as 
we  suppose  there  is  between  brandy  and  hock  wine,  though, 
as  we  do  not  know  what  hock  wine  is,  we  cannot  be  sure 
about  it,  but  we  think  it  rather  strong  language  to  call  such 
want  of  discrimination  and  language  indicating  it  ''  a  moral 
outrage  which  the  whole  community  should  indignantly  re- 
pel." If  these  are  those  ^*  whose  digestion  is  feeble,  circu- 
lation languid,  and  nervous  system  too  excitable,"  and  cer- 
tain alcoholic  drinks  will  do  them  good,  do  let  them  have 
them  J  we  shall  not  object. 

A  fourth  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  system,  says 
Dr.  Crosby,  ''  is  its  assertion  that  all  drinks  that  contain  al- 
cohol are  poison."  This  is  much  like  the  third.  It  involves, 
however,  the  scientific  question  whether  there  is,  or  is  not, 
"  a  radical  difference,  a  difference  in  degree  not  only  but  in 
kind,  between  the  effects  of  large  and  small  quantities  of 
alcohol." 

We  now  come  to  the  pledge.  The  use  of  this  Dr.  Crosby 
regards  as  the  fifth  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  sys- 
tem.   He  would  have  the  appeal  made  directly  and  continu- 


A  Review  of  Dr.  Croshij.  35 

ously  to  the  moral  nature  ^ith  no  pledge.  So  far  as  we  see, 
what  he  says  applies  equally  to  all  pledges.  ^'  Instead  of 
regulating  a  man  from  within,"  they  are  equally  ''strait- 
jackets."  "  The  pledge/'  he  says,  'Ms  always  an  injury,  and 
never  a  benefit  to  true  morality."  Again  he  says  :  "  Man's 
moral  nature  is  not  to  be  curbed  by  pledges.'  Than  this 
nothing  could  be  more  sweeping  and  universal.  Now,  that, 
in  a  country  whose  independence  was  estabhshed  by  men 
y^ho  pledged  their  lives  and  liberty  and  sacred  honor  for  its 
maintenance,  whose  marriages  and  churches  and  business 
contracts  are  all  sustained  and  guarded  by  pledges,  for  a 
contract  is  simply  a  mutual  pledge,  this  wholesale  onslaught 
upon  them  should  be  made  seems  extraordinary.  We  had 
supposed  that  the  Scripture  precept,  ''Vow,  and  pay  unto 
the  Lord  thy  vows,"  was  still  in  force.  By  the  pledge  the 
influence  of  the  social  element  is  gained,  and  we  do  not  see, 
as  Dr.  Crosby  thinks  he  does,  why  the  moral  nature  may 
not  be  appealed  to  for  the  keeping  of  the  pledge  as  well  as 
in  any  other  way.  Not  alone  to  their  moral  nature,  but  to 
all  that  was  noble  within  them,  did  that  mother  appeal  when 
she  asked  each  of  her  four  boys,  as  he  left  her  at  an  early 
age  to  make  his  own  way  in  the  world,  to  pledge  himself 
never  to  use  intoxicating  drinks,  or  profane  language,  or 
tobacco  before  he  should  be  twenty-one.  The  boys  pledged 
themselves  and  have  kept  their  pledge,  and  now,  at  ages 
ranging  from  sixty-five  to  seventy-five  they  are  honored 
men ;  but  one  of  them  has  ha-d  a  sick  day,  and  no  one  of 
them  is  worth  less  than  a  million  of  dollars.  That  there 
have  been  great  abuses  in  connection  with  the  pledge  in 
the  temperance  movement  we  do  not  doubt,  but  that  does 
not  show  that  either  the  original  adoption  of  it  or  the  use 
of  it  on  the  whole  has  been  or  is  a  moral  error. 

The  sixth  and  last  moral  error  noticed  by  Dr.  Crosby  re- 
spects the  question  already  referred  to  about  the  kinds  of  wine 
mentioned  in  the  Scriptures.  Is  there  only  one,  or  are  there 
two  ?  On  this  we  have  two  things  to  say.  The  first  is,  and 
Dr.  Crosby  concedes  it,  that  the  Scriptures  nowhere  CDm- 
mand  us  to  drink  wine  of  any  kind  as  a  beverage.     We  feel, 


36  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstmence. 

therefore,  tliat  we  do  not  go  against  the  Scriptures  either  in 
abstaining  from  wine  as  a  beverage  ourselves  or  in  e-idea- 
voring  to  lead  others  to  do  so.  The  secoud  thing  we  have 
to  say  is  implied  in  a  story  we  remember  to  have  heard.  It 
is  that  during  the  final  battle  before  Vicksburg,  when  some 
injudicious  person  rushed  into  the  presence  of  General  Grant 
and  in  the  most  excited  manner  called  his  attention  to  an 
incidental  matter,  the  general  merely  said,  with  his  charac- 
teristic calmness  :  *'  I  am  fighting  tliis  battle.^' 

We  now  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  method  proposed  by 
Dr.  Crosby.  It  is  one  of  blended  prohibition  and  license- 
prohibition  of  distilled  liquors,  and  license  for  fermented 
ones.  In  adopting  this  he  gives  np  his  argument  about 
manliness,  and  concedes  the  principle  of  prohibition.  Of 
the  right  of  this  there  can  be  no  doubt  so  far  as  it  may  be 
necessary  for  the  protection  of  rights,  and  we  wish  to  apply 
it  only  so  far  as  may  be  necessary  for  that.  If  we  could 
avoid  doing  so,  and  still  have  our  rights,  we  would  in  no 
way  interfere  legally  with  what  any  person  should  eat  or 
drink.  If  iu  manufacturing  chemicals  a  man  causes  an 
offensive  and  poisonous  smoke  to  invade  the  houses  of  his 
neighbors,  the  law  compels  him  to  raise  his  chimney  till 
the  smoke  shaU  pass  away,  and  then,  if  any  one,  or  even 
numbers,  should  be  fond  of  the  smoke,  and  be  obliged  to 
climb  to  the  top  of  the  chimney  to  get  a  whiff  of  it,  they 
could  not  complain  that  it  was  the  object  of  the  law  to 
make  them  do  so,  or  to  interfere  in  any  way  with  what 
they  should  smell.  Let  the  traffic  be  so  regulated  that 
it  shall  be  responsible  for  its  own  results  and  we  are  con- 
tent. 

The  difficulty  of  framing  laws  by  which  this  would  be 
reached  we  appreciate.  We  do  not  wish  those  that  cannot 
be  executed.  Prohibition  may  be  wise  in  one  place,  or  in 
one  degree,  and  not  iu  another  place  and  to  another  de- 
gree. If  laws  theoretically  the  best  would  not  be  executed 
to  a  reasonable  extent,  we  must  get  the  best  we  can  that 
will  be  thus  executed.  If,  which  we  do  not  at  all  beheve, 
the  mixed  system  proposed  by  Dr.  Crosby  would  approxi- 


A  Review  of  Dr.  Crosby.  37 

mate  that  result  most  nearly  we  would  accept  that.  Mean- 
tune,  we  must  not  fail  to  recognize  the  total-abstinence 
scheme  as  having  aims  and  methods  different  from  those  of 
legislation,  wholly  above  and  beyond  them,  and  if  it  be 
really  the  best,  as  we  think  it  is,  for  the  peace  of  families 
and  for  the  purity  and  permanence  of  our  institutions,  we 
must  not  be  deterred  by  opposition  or  discouraged  by  ob- 
stacles from  doing  what  we  can  to  promote  it. 

We  have  now  followed  the  lecture  step  by  step,  and  what 
have  we?  We  have,  in  connection  with  a  claim  to  a  calm 
view  of  the  temperance  question,  strong  denunciation  and  a 
proclamation  of  war  to  be  carried  into  Africa.  ^'Carthago 
delenda  esV^  We  have  the  general  statement  that  the  main 
supports  of  the  total-abstinence  scheme  are  falsehoods  nnd 
intimidations.  The  friends  of  the  scheme  are  allowed  to  be 
well-meaning  people,  some  of  them  even  "noble  souls," 
but  too  fanatical  and  headlong  to  be  aware  of  the  means 
they  are  using.  We  have  the  failure  of  the  system  attribut- 
ed, not  to  anything  wrong  in  itself,  but  to  wrong  methods. 
We  have  then  the  statement  that  this  same  system  is  the 
cause  of  the  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land  and  of  gene- 
ral deraorahzation.  We  have  mere  opinion  on  certain  points 
branded  as  moral  error,  and  we  have  the  condemnation  of 
all  pledges.  All  this  we  have,  but  we  have  no  recogniza 
tion  of  the  overwhelming  testimony  of  physicians  that  the 
alcoholic  element  is  not  needed  for  our  best  health,  or  of 
the  tremendous  statistics  of  intemperance,  or  of  the  force 
of  example,  or  of  the  great  principle,  as  expounded  by  the 
apostle  Paul  and  illustrated  by  our  Saviour  himself,  of  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  good  of  others. 

This  lecture  of  Dr.  Crosby  has  attracted  wide  attention. 
From  its  subject,  the  place  of  its  delivery,  and  the  person  de- 
livering it,  it  could  not  be  otherwise.  If  it  had  been  given 
by  an  ordinary  man  we  should  not  have  felt  called  upon  to 
notice  it.  But  Dr.  Crosby  is  not  an  ordinary  man.  From 
his  position  as  chancellor  of  the  University  of  New  York, 
from  his  eminent  scholarship,  his  high  character,  his  evident 
sincerity,  and  the  noble  efforts  he  has  made  and  is  now 


38  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

making  for  the  suppression  of  crime  and  for  moral  reform, 
his  words  fall  with  a  weight  which  only  makes  it  the  more 
imperative,  if  they  be,  as  we  think,  erroneous  and  mislead- 
ing, that  we  should  do  what  we  can  that  their  influence  may 
be  counteracted. 


A  REPLT 

TO 

Dr.  Crosby's  ''Calm  View  of  Temperance." 


By  WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 


Delivered  VI  Treviont  Temple^  Boston^  January  24,  1881, 

before  the  Association  of  the  Mifiisters  of  the 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 


I  AM  to  offer  you  some  remarks  on  a  lecture  delivered 
here  a  fortnight  ago  by  Chancellor  Crosby.  He  de- 
nounced the  temperance  movement  as  now  conducted. 
The  address  was  not  very  remarkable  for  novelty,  or  weight 
of  argument,  or  the  correctness  of  its  statements.  Indeed,  it 
was  rather  noticeable  for  the  lack  of  these  qualities.  And  it 
was  so  well  handled  and  so  fally  answered  in  several  of  our 
pulpits  that  I  thought  it  needed  no  further  notice.  But  you 
thought  otherwise,  and  perhaps  it  does  deserve  it,  considering 
the  source  from  which  it  comes.  And  when  the  health  of  the 
chancellor  becomes  the  standing  toast  in  the  grog-shops  of 
our  city,  and  when  the  journal  which  publishes  these  Mon- 
day lectures  is  obliged  to  print  a  second  and  third  edition, 
day  after  day,  to  supply  that  class  of  customers,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  temperance  men  have  a  text  on  which  an  effectual 
temperance  sermon  can  be  preached — one  that  will  proba- 
bly arrest  the  attention  of  just  those  we  seek  to  reach. 

Dr.  Crosby  laments  the  divisions  among  temperance  men, 
and  lays  it  down  as  a  principle  that  we  ''  cannot  conscien- 
tiously object  to  the  means  employed  by  others,  unless  they 

39 


40  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

contain  an  immorality."  I  beg  leave  to  dissent  from  this.  We 
have  had  sixty  years'  experience  in  temperance  methods, 
and  certainly  may  claim  to  have  learned  something.  Now, 
when  these  new  converts,  these  nursling  babies  of  grace, 
mislead  by  their  crude  suggestions  the  temperance  public, 
obstruct  its  efforts  and  waste  its  means,  are  we  bound  to  sit 
silent  and  make  no  protest  against  such  waste  and  reckless- 
ness ?  The  treasury  of  reform  is  not  rich  enough  to  bear  such 
extravagance  on  the  pretence  of  harmony ;  much  less  are  we 
bound  to  silence  when  a  neighbor's  mistake  seriously  harms 
and  binders  the  movement.  If  Boston  lived,  as  it  did  in 
1806,  with  no  steam  fire-engine  (only  leather  buckets  hang- 
ing in  each  man's  front  entry),  cheerfully  would  I  stand  with 
Dr.  Crosby  and  a  hundred  more  to  pass  buckets  of  water 
up  to  the  firemen  on  a  burning  building.  But  in  1881  I 
should  not  ob:^truct  the  engine,  and  crowd  it  out  of  its  place, 
merely  that  I  and  Dr.  Crosby  might  Lave  a  chance  harmoni- 
ously to  unite  in  passing  empty  buckets  toward  the  flames. 
Life  is  too  short  for  such  false  courtesies ;  too  short  for  us  to 
postpone  working  on  our  line  until  we  have  educated  every 
new  convert  up  to  our  level.  This  might  do  very  well  be- 
fore the  Flood,  as  Sydney  Smith  suggests,  when  Methuselah 
could  consult  his  friends  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  in  re- 
lation to  an  intended  enterprise,  and  even  then  live  to  see 
the  working  of  his  plan,  and  its  success  or  failure,  for  six  or 
seven  centuries  afterward. 

But  life  now  is  limited  to  an  average  of  seventy  years,  and 
practical  men  must  put  their  hands  to  the  plough  in  the  best 
way  they  know,  and,  if  children  stand  in  their  w'ay,  move 
them  gently  but  firmly  out  of  the  path. 

I  think  before  Dr.  Crosby  spoke  he  should  have  studied 
the  history  of  the  temperance  movement.  If  he  were  as 
familiar  with  the  literature  of  our  enterprise  as  he  is  with 
that  of  Greece,  he  never  would  have  repeated  criticisms  and 
suggestions  that  have  been  answered  over  and  over  again 
during  the  last  fifty  years.  As  I  turn  over  his  essay,  and 
find  how  tediously  familiar  we  all  are  with  his  objections,  I 
am  reminded  of  Johnson's  objection  to  Goldsmith's  plan  of 
travelling  over  Asia  in  order  to  bring  home  valuable  im- 


ReiJly  of  WencMl  Phillips.  41 

provements  :  ^^  Sir,  Goldsmith  is  so  ignorant  of  his  own  coun- 
try that  he  would  bring  home  a  wheelbarrow  as  a  new  and 
valuable  invention." 

The  address  turns  back  in  its  path  frequently,  and  repeats 
its  chief  criticisms  again  and  again.  If  we  analyze  it  I 
think  it  may  be  fairly  summed  up  thus : 

1.  Dr.  Crosby  objects  to  the  total-abstinence  theory  and 
movement  that  it  insults  the  example  of  Jesus ;  that  its  ad- 
vocates undermine  and  despise  the  Bible,  while  they  strain 
and  wrench  it  to  serve  their  purpose ;  and  he  asserts  that  the 
^'  total -abstinence  system  is  contrary  to  revealed  religion  " ; 
and  that  the  Bible,  correctly  interpreted,  repudiates  total 
abstinence  and  such  a  temperance  crusade  as  has  existed 
here  for  the  last  fifty  years. 

2.  Dr.  Crosby  objects  to  this  movement  as  immoral  as  well 
as  unchristian ;  and  as  ^'  doing  unmeasured  harm  to  the  com- 
munity." He  considers  it  as  the  special  and  direct  cause  of 
the  '*  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land,  and  of  a  general 
demoralization  among  religious  communities  ";  asserts  that 
it  is  exactly  the  kind  of  movement  that  rumsellers  enjoy,  and 
that  it  ought  not  to  succeed,  never  will,  and  never  can. 

3.  The  pledge  is  unmanly  and  kills  character  and  self- 
respect. 

4.  The  assertion  that  moderate  drinking  leads  to  drunk- 
enness is  untrue. 

5.  The  total-abstainers  bully  and  intimidate  the  communi- 
ty and  disgust  all  good,  sensible  men. 

6.  That  what  is  needed  to  unite  sensible  men  in  a  move- 
ment sure  to  succeed  is  a  license  system  recognizing  the 
distinction  between  moderation  and  excess,  between  harm- 
less wines  and  beer  and  strong  drink.  Such  a  system,  ''free 
from  taint  of  prejudice,  and  instinct  with  practical  wisdom, 
will  establish  order  and  peace  and  save  us  from  a  moral 
slough." 

The  looseness  of  these  statemeuts  is  noticeable.  Dr. 
Crosby  says  ^'  the  total-abstinence  system  is  contrary  to  re- 
vealed religion." 

What  is  the  ''  total-abstinence  system  "?  It  is  abstaining 
from  intoxicating  drink  ourselves^  and  agreeing,  with  others 


42  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstlnencc. 

to  do  so.  How  is  tliis  contrary  to  revealed  religion  ?  Can 
any  one  cite  a  text  in  the  Bible  or  a  principle  laid  down  there 
which  forbids  it?  Of  course  not;  no  one  pretends  that  he 
can.  But  Dr.  Crosby's  argument  is  that  Jesus  drank  intoxi- 
cating wioe  and  allowed  it  to  others.  There  is  no  proof 
that  he  ever  did  drink  intoxicating  wine.  But  let  that  pass, 
and  suppose,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  he  did. 
What  then?  To  do  what  Jesus  never  did,  or  to  refuse  to 
do  what  he  did — are  such  acts  necessarily  *'  contrary  to  re- 
vealed religion  "  ?    Let  us  see. 

Jesus  rode  upon  an  ''  ass  and  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass." 
We  find  it  convenient  to  use  railways.  Are  they  "  contrary 
to  revealed  religion"?  Jesus  never  married,  neither  did 
most  of  his  apostles.  Is  marriage,  therefore,  '^  contrary  to 
revealed  religion  "  ?  Jesus  allowed  a  husband  to  put  away 
his  wife  if  she  had  committed  adultery,  he  himself  being 
judge  and  executioner.  We  forbid  him  to  do  it,  and  make 
him  submit  to  jury  trial  and  a  judge's  decision.  Are  such 
divorce  laws,  therefore,  ^' contrary  to  revealed  religion"? 
Jesus  said  to  the  person  guilty  of  adultery  :  '^  Go  and  sin 
no  more."  We  send  such  sinners  to  the  State  prison.  Are 
our  laws  punishing  adultery,  therefore,  ''contrary  to  re- 
vealed religion  "  ?  There  were  no  women  at  the  Last  Supper. 
We  admit  them  to  it.  Is  this ''contrary  to  revealed  reli- 
gion "  ?  We  see  therefore  that  Christians  may,  in  altered 
circumstances,  do  some  things  Jesus  never  actually  did,  and 
that  their  so  doing  does  not  necessarily  contravene  his  ex- 
ample; nor,  unless  it  violates  t\iQ uprinciples  he  taught,  does 
it  tend  to  undermine  Christianity. 

But  the  learned  lecturer  will,  perhaps,  urge  :  "  I  did  not 
mean  exactly  what  I  said.  I  meant  to  point  out  that  the 
means  you  use — methods  with  which  you  urge  and  support 
the  total-abstinence  theory— are  contrary  to  revealed  reli- 
gion. You  strain  and  pervert  the  Bible  to  get  the  example 
of  Jesus  on  your  side,  and  so  undermine  the  authority  of  the 
Scriptures." 

It  would  have  been  better  if  Dr.  Crosby  had  originally 
said  exactly  what  he  meant,  and  on  so  grave  a  subject  we 
had  a  right  to  claim  that  a  trained  and  scholarly  man  should 


Ee2)lij  of  Wendell  Phillips,  43 

do  so.  But,  waiving  that,  let  us  allow  Mm,  as  the  courts 
do,  to  amend  his  declaration. 

The  total-abstinence  system  is  ^'  contrary  to  revealed  re- 
ligion," because  we  strain  and  distort  the  Scriptures  and 
wrest  them  to  serve  our  purpose ;  and  the  chief  instance 
upon  which  the  doctor  mainly  dwells  is  our  assertion  that 
wherever  drinking  wine  is  referred  to  in  the  Bible  with 
approbation  unfermented  wine  is  meant.  Upon  this  claim 
the  doctor  pours  out  his  hottest  indignation,  indulging  in  a 
wealth  of  abusive  epithets,  and  returning  to  it  again,  and 
again  ringing  changes  on  it,  and  turning  it  hke  a  specially 
sweet  morsel  under  his  tongue.  Indeed,  this  may  be  consid- 
ered the  chief  thing  he  came  to  Boston  to  say. 

Now,  there  is  a  class  of  Biblical  scholars  and  interpreters 
who  do  assert  that  wherever  wine  is  referred  to  in  the  Bible 
with  approbation  it  is  unfermented  wine.  Of  this  class  of 
men  Dr.  Crosby  says  ^'  their  learned  ignorance  is  splendid  " ; 
they  are  ''  inventors  of  a  theory  of  magnificent  daring"; 
they  ^'  use  false  texts  "  and  '^  deceptive  arguments  " ;  "  deal 
dishonestly  with  the  Scriptures";  '' beg  the  question  and 
build  on  air";  their  theory  is  a  ''fable,"  born  of  ''false- 
hoods," supported  by  "  Scripture-twisting  and  wriggling"; 
their  arguments  are  "  cobwebs,"  and  their  zeal  outstrips  their 
judgment,  and  they  plan  to  "  undermine  the  Bible." 

This  is  a  fearful  indictment !  Who  are  these  daring,  ri- 
diculous, and  illogical  sinners?  As  I  call  them  up  in  my 
memory,  the  first  one  who  comes  to  me  is  Moses  Stuart,  of 
Andover,  whose  lifelong  study  of  the  Bible  and  profound 
critical  knowledge  of  both  its  languages  place  him  easily  at 
the  head  of  all  American  commentators.  His  well-balanced 
mind,  conservative  to  a  fault  on  many  points,  clears  him 
from  any  suspicion  of  being  misled  by  enthusiasm  or  warp- 
ing his  opinions  to  suit  novel  theories.  "  Moses  Stuart's 
Scripture  View  of  the  Wine  Question"  was  the  ablest  con- 
tribution, thirty  years  ago,  to  this  claim  about  unfermented 
wine,  and  it  still  holds  its  place,  unanswered  and  unanswer- 
able. By  his  side  stands  Dr.  Nott,  the  head  of  Union  Col- 
lege, with  the  snows  of  ninety  winters  on  his  brow.  Around 
^hem  gather  scores  of  scholars  and  divines  on  both  sides  of 


44  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

the  Atlantic.  In  our  day  Tayler  Lewis  gives  to  the  Ameri- 
can public,  with  his  scholarly  endorsement,  the  exhaustive 
commentary  by  Dr.  Lees  on  every  text  in  the  Bible  which 
speaks  of  wine — a  work  of  sound  learning,  the  widest  re- 
search, and  fairest  argument. 

The  ripe  scholarship,  long  study  of  the  Bible,  and  critical 
ability  of  these  men  entitle  them  to  be  considered  experts 
on  this  question.  In  a  matter  of  Scripture  interpretation  it 
would  be  empty  compliment  to  say  that  Dr.  Crosby  is  wor- 
thy to  loose  the  latchet  of  their  shoes.  You  would  think  me 
using  only  sarcasm  if  I  said  so. 

Now,  imagine  Moses  Stuart,  with  his  "  learned  ignorance," 
^' using  false  texts,"  '^  dealing  dishonestly  with  the  Scrip- 
tures," "■  begging  a  question  and  using  cobwebs  for  argu- 
ments," "  wriggling  and  twisting  the  Bible  ";  at  the  ripe  age 
of  sixty  years  his  boyish  "  zeal  outstripping  bis  judgment" — 
imagine  him,  with  his  infidel  pickaxe,  zealously  digging  away 
up  there  on  Andover  Hill  to  ^'undermine  the  Bible"  !  Of 
course  all  Andover  will  at  once  recognize  the  fidelity  of  the 
portrait,  and  cordially  thank  the  New  York  Greek  professor 
for  informing  them  of  his  discovery  of  this  Stuart  conspiracy 
with  Dr.  Nott  to  bring  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  into 
contempt. 

One  thing  Dr.  Crosby  wishes  to  be  distinctly  understood : 
he  does  not  charge  such  men  as  Stuart  with  meaning  to  lie. 
*^  Their  main  arguments  are  falsehoods.  They  take  up  these 
weapons  without  suflflciently  examining  them.  They  see 
they  can  be  made  efieetive,  but  do  not  stop  to  enquire 
whether  they  are  legitimate."  Now,  this  is  very  kind  in  our 
New  York  professor.  We  had  never  discovered  the  super- 
ficial character  of  Stuart's  scholarship,  which  left  him  open 
to  such  mistakes,  or  his  mischievous  haste  and  culpable 
carelessness  in  logical  methods,  and  it  is  very  generous  in 
this  new^  Daniel  to  assure  us  that,  in  spite  of  these  faults,  he 
^'can  [with  effort,  of  course,  and  some  struggle]  believe  in 
the  purity  of  motive  "  of  such  men,  even  when  they  "■  trample 
on  reason  and  Scripture  in  blind  rush." 

Now,  the  truth  is,  the  only  ^^  castle  built  on  air  "  in  this 
matter  is  the  baseless  idea  that  the  teuiperance  movement 


Mej^hj  of  Wendell  Fhithps.  45 

uses  dishonest  arguments  or  wrests  the  Scripture  because  it 
maintains  that  where  the  drinking  of  wine  as  an  article  of 
diet  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible  with  approbation  unfermented 
wine  is  meant.  The  fact  is,  there  are  scholars  of  repute  on 
both  sides  of  the  question ;  but  we  do  not  claim  too  much 
when  we  say  that  the  weight  of  scholarly  authority  is  on  our 
side,  and  not  on  that  of  the  doctor. 

But  suppose  the  weight  on  each  side  were  equal,  what 
then  ■?  One  theory  makes  the  Bible  contradict  itself^  puts  it 
below  the  sacred  books  of  many  other  nations  in  the  strict- 
ness of  its  morality,  and  sets  it  as  an  obstacle  to  the  highest 
civilization. 

The  other  reconciles  all  its  teachings  one  with  another, 
lifts  it  to  the  level  of  the  highest  moral  idea,  and  makes  it 
the  inspirer  and  the  guide  in  all  noble  efforts  to  elevate  the 
race.  Which  theory  ought  the  behever  in  the  Bible  to  pre- 
fer, if  both  were  equally  well  supported?  Are  those  who 
degrade  the  Bible  below  other  scriptures  entitled  to  charge 
us  with  ''  undermining"  it  ?  There  are  other  claims  besides 
that  of  unfermented  wine  which  are  '^  magnificent  in  their 
daring  "  and,  let  me  add,  in  their  insolence. 

Some  of  the  doctor's  young  hearers  might  have  been  sur- 
prised to  see  a  divine  flinging  the  Bible  in  the  way  of  the 
temperance  movement.  But  we  older  ones  and  Abolitionists 
are  used  to  such  attempts.  Forty -five  years  ago  the 
Princeton  Bevietv,  representing  the  Presbyterian  Church,  de- 
nounced the  anti-slavery  movement— at  a  time  when  Garri- 
son stood  surrounded  by  divines  and  church-members  with- 
out number— as  infidel  and  ^'contrary  to  revealed  religion." 
Its  argument  was  the  exact  counterpart  of  Dr.  Crosby's 
against  our  temperance  enterprise.  In  vain  we  showed  that 
the  word  ''  slave"  in  the  New  Testament  did  not  necessari- 
ly or  probably  mean  a  chattel  slave,  and  in  vain  did  Weld's 
"  Bible  Argument  " — which  was  never  answered — prove  the 
same  to  be  true  of  the  Old  Testament.  Still,  we  were  de- 
nounced as  ^'  twisting  and  wresting  and  straining  the  Scrip- 
tures and  undermining  the  Bible."  This  Crosby  Bible  was 
flung  in  Garrison's  face  for  thirty  years.  But  since  his  great 
hand  wrote  Mighteousness  on  the  flag  and  sent  it  down  to 


46  Moderaiwn  vs.  Total  Alstmence, 

the  G-ulf,  and  since  we  boast  that  no  slave  treads  our  soil — 
since  then  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  church-members 
out  of  every  thousand  will  call  you  a  libelerand  suspect  you 
of  infidelity  if  you  say  the  Bible  anywhere  or  in  any  degree 
upholds  slavery;  and  I  see  your  lecturer  last  week  closed 
his  eloquent  and  able  address  by  triumphantly  claiming  that 
the  Gospel  abolished  slavery — which  is  truC;  only  he  should 
have  stated  that  it  was  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  not 
the  gospel  of  the  church  of  that  day. 

Hence  I  am  not  impatient  nor  distrustful.  I  rest  quiet  in 
serene  assurance  that  by  and  by,  when  our  temperauce 
cause  is  a  little  stronger,  men  will  blush  to  think  they  ever 
belittled  and  dishonored  the  Bible  by  such  claims  and  argu- 
ments as  these.  At  that  time  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hun- 
dred Christians  will  look  askance  upon  you,  and  suspect 
your  orthodoxy,  unless  you  believe  Jesus  never  drank  any 
fermented  wine,  and  that  the  Bible's  precepts  touching  wine- 
drinking  can  only  be  reconciled  with  each  other  or  with  its 
claim  as  a  revealed  religion  by  recognizing  the  distinction 
between  fermented  and  unfermented  wines.  In  my  active 
life  of  fifty  years  I  have  seen  more  men  made  infidels  by 
these  attempts  to  prove  the  Bible  an  upholder  of  slavery 
than  I  ever  saw  misled  by  the  followers  of  Paine ;  and  I 
think  this  sad  exhibition  of  New  York  partisanship  will 
have  the  same  result.  The  misled  men  to  whom  I  refer 
were  not  ignorant,  careless-minded,  or  unprincipled,  but 
men  of  conscientious  earnestness  of  purpose,  good  culture, 
and  blameless  lives. 

It  is,  indeed,  mournful  to  look  back  and  notice  how  uni- 
formly narrow-minded  men,  hide-bound  in  the  bark  of  tra- 
dition, conventionalism,  and  prejudice,  have  thrown  the 
Bible  in  the  way  of  every  forward  step  the  race  has  ever 
made.  When  the  Reformation  claimed  that  every  Christian 
man  was  his  own  priest  and  entitled  to  read  the  Bible  for 
himself,  the  cry  was:  *' You  are  resisting  and  undermining 
the  Bible."  Even  before  that  the  most  advanced  and  liberal 
churchmen  denounced  their  own  (unrecognized,  but  true) 
spiritual  brothers — the  democracy  of  their  day  in  Holland 
and  elsewhere— as  infidels  and  contemners  of  the  Scriptures. 


Reply  of  Wefidell  PhilUps,  47 

When  the  English  Puritan  saw  dimly  a  republican  equal- 
ity of  rights,  Sir  Robert  Filmer  and  the  High- Churchmen 
tried  to  frighten  him  with  the  scarecrow  of  their  Bible. 
The  chief  apostle  says,  *'  Honor  the  king !  "  aud  this  fellow 
leaves  us  no  king  to  honor!  But  even  Dr.  Crosby  would, 
in  spite  of  St.  Peter,  hardly  acknowledge  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  to  be  ''  contrary  to  revealed  rehgion." 

One  of  the  strongest  proofs  that  the  Bible  is  really  a  di- 
vine book  is  that  it  has  outlived  even  the  foolish  praises  and 
misrepresentations  of  its  narrow  and  bigoted  friends. 

When  anti-slavery  lecturers  first  entered  Ohio,  some  forty 
years  ago,  they  carried  the  Bible  before  them  as  their  sanc- 
tion for  the  movement.  Certain  doctors  of  divinity,  horror- 
struck  at  this  profanation,  proposed  to  form  a  society  whose 
object  should  be  to  prove  that  the  Bible  sanctioned  slavery. 
Ben  Wade  was  then  considered  somewhat  of  an  infidel; 
but,  on  the  principle  of  the  forlorn  sailor,  who  puts  up  with 
any  port  in  a  storm,  these  divines  sought  out  Wade,  asking 
him  to  be  president  of  the  proposed  society.  Wade  received 
them  most  courteously.  ^'  Certainly,"  said  he,  ^'  gentlemen, 
I  will  serve  you  gladly,  and  do  my  best  to  make  this  thing  a 
success.  But,  you  know,  when  we've  proved  that  the  Bible 
supports  and  demands  slavery  as  an  institution,  folks  will 
ask  you  to  show  them  what  is  the  worth  of  such  a  Bible, 
here  and  now.  And  in  that  matter  I  cannot  be  of  any  help 
to  you,  gentlemen,  at  all." 

But  some  adherent  of  Dr.  Crosby  may  say  :  Still,  the  New 
Testament  does  not  anywhere  specifically  and  in  so  many 
words  describe  a  system  of  moral  observance  like  teetotal- 
ism.  Possibly  not;  and  hence  the  doctor  claims  that  this 
suiting  Christianity  to  the  needs  of  the  age  is  disguised 
infidelity. 

But  look  at  it  a  moment.  The  New  Testament  is  a  small 
book,  and  may  be  read  in  an  hour.  It  is  not  a  code  of  laws, 
but  the  example  of  a  life  and  a  suggestion  of  principles.  It 
would  be  idle  to  suppose  that  it  could  describe  in  detail, 
specifically  meet  every  possible  question,  and  solve  every 
difficulty  that  the  changing  and  broadening  life  of  two  or 
three  thousand  years  might  bring  forth.    The  progressive 


48  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

spirit  of  each  age  bas  found  in  it  just  the  inspiration  and 
help  it  sought.  But  when  timid,  narrow,  and  short-sighted 
men  claimed  such  exclusive  ownership  in  it  that  they  refused 
to  their  growing  fellows  the  use  of  its  broad,  underlying 
principles,  and  thus  demanded  to  have  new  wine  put  into 
old  bottles,  of  course  the  bottles  burst  and  their  narrow- 
surface  Bible  became  discredited;  but  the  real  Bible  soared 
upward,  and  led  the  world  onward  still,  as  the  soul  rises  to 
broader  and  higher  life  when  the  burden  of  a  narrow  and 
mortal  body  falls  away.  This  is  that  kind  of  literal  and 
starved  ignorance  which  lays  its  unworthy  hand  on  the 
Scriptures,  and  tells  us  that,  because  Solomon  said,  '-He 
that  spareth  the  rod  spoileth  the  child,"  he  meant  every 
child  must  be  mercilessly  whipped ;  thus  dragging  down  the 
wisest  of  men  to  the  level  of  their  own  narrow  and  brutal 
nature,  ignorant  that  the  poet-king,  ]3utting  the  concrete  for 
the  principle  involved,  meant  only  to  emphasize  the  truth 
that  the  training  of  a  child  must  include  subjection — by 
what  method  obtained  each  case  and  each  child's  nature 
must  decide.  And  thus  many  a  brute  and  ignoramus  has 
complacently  fathered  his  absurd  blindness  and  passionate 
temper  on  Solomon  and  the  Bible. 

Had  not  the  lecturer  of  last  week  (Dr.  Crooks)  so  ably  and 
eloquently  pointed  out  this  characteristic  of  Christianity, 
its  opening  to  the  moral  and  spiritual  need  of  each  age,  its 
ready  and  complete  adaptation  of  itself  to  the  most  unfore- 
seen and  immense  changes  in  the  moral  life  of  succeeding 
ages — one  of  the  proofs  of  its  divine  origin — furnishing  the 
principles  needed  for  each  larger  development  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  giving  its  sanction  to  the  new  methods  which 
keener  temptations  and  more  threatening  dangers  demanded, 
I  might  have  troubled  you  with  something  on  this  point. 
You  will  allow  me  to  quote  what  will  show  you  that  even  the 
old  divines  and  those  whose  orthodoxy  will  not  be  suspected 
have,  again  and  again,  affirmed  that  a  moral  agency's  being 
new  was  no  evidence  at  all  that  Christianity  did  not  include 
and  intend  it.  Eobinson,  in  '^Address  to  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,"  says : 

"If  God  reveal  anything  to  you  by  any  other  instrument  of 


Rejjhj  of  Wendell  FJnIJijjs.  49 

his,  be  as  ready  to  receive  it  as  ever  you  were  to  receive  any  truth 

by  my  ministry  ;  for  I  am  verily  persuaded — I  am  very  confident 

— the  Lord  hath  more  truth  yet  to  break  forth  out  of  his  Holy 

Word." 

The  Hon.  Robert  Boyle  (1680)  says  : 

"As  the  Bible  was  not  written  for  any  one  particular  time  or 
people,  ...  so  there  are  many  passages  very  useful  which 
will  not  be  found  so  these  many  ages  ;  being  possibly  reserved  by 
the  Prophetic  Spirit  that  indited  them  ...  to  quell  some 
foreseen  heresy,  ...  or  resolve  some  yet  unformed  doubts,  or 
confound  some  error  that  hath  not  yet  a  name." 

Bishop  Butler,  in  Ms  ^'  Analogy  "  (1737),  says  : 

*'  Nor  is  it  at  all  incredible  that  a  Book  which  has  been  so  long 
in  the  possession  of  mankind,  should  yet  contain  many  truths  as 
yet  undiscovered.  For  all  the  same  phenomena  and  the  same 
faculties  of  investigation  from  which  such  great  discoveries  in 
natural  knowledge  have  been  made  in  the  present  and  last  age 
were  equally  in  the  possession  of  maniiind  several  thousand  years 
before.  And  possibly  it  might  be  intended  that  events,  as  they 
come  to  pass,  should  open  and  ascertain  the  meaning  of  several 
parts  of  Scripture." 

The  Interpreter  (1862)  says  : 

"  A  day  is  coming  when  Scripture,  long  darkened  by  traditional 
teaching,  too  frequently  treated  as  an  exhaustive  mine,  will  at 
length  be  recognized  in  its  true  character,  as  a  field  rich  in  unex- 
plored wealth,  and  consequently  be  searched  afresh  for  its  hidden 
treasures." 

Vinet,  in  his  "  Lectures,"  says : 

"  Even  now,  after  eighteen  centuries  of  Christianity,  we  may  be 
involved  in  some  tremendous  error  of  which  the  Christianity  of 
the  future  will  make  us  ashamed." 

Dean  Stanley  says : 

**Each  age  of  the  church  has,  as  it  were,  turned  over  a  new 
leaf  in  the  Bible,  and  found  a  response  to  its  own  wants.  We 
have  a  leaf  still  to  turn — a  leaf  not  the  less  new  because  it  is  so 
simple." 

Dr.  Crosby  passes  to  the  great  weapon  of  the  temperance 
movement— the  pledge.     This   he   calls  ''unmanly,"  ''a 


50  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

straisjacket "  J  says  it  kills  self-respect  and  undermines 
all  character. 

Hannali  More  said :  ^'  We  cannot  expect  perfection  in  any- 
one ;  but  we  may  demand  consistency  of  every  one.^' 

It  does  not  fend  to  show  the  sincerity  of  these  critics  of 
our  cause  when  we  find  them  objecting  in  us  to  what  they 
themselves  uniformly  practise  on  all  other  occasions.  If  we 
contiDue  to  believe  in  their  sincerity,  it  can  only  be  at  the 
expense  of  their  intelligence.  Dr.  Crosby  is,  undoubtedly,  a 
member  of  a  church.  Does  he  mean  to  say  that,  when  his 
church  demanded  his  signature  to  its  creed  and  his  pledge 
to  obey  its  discipline,  it  asked  what  it  was ''unmanly"  in 
him  to  grant  and  what  destroys  an  individual's  character — 
that  his  submission  to  this  is  '•'  foregoing  his  reasoning," 
^'  sinking  back  to  his  nonage,"  etc.  *?  Of  course  he  assents 
to  none  of  these  things.  He  only  objects  to  a  temperance 
pledge,  not  to  a  church  one. 

The  husband  pledges  himself  to  his  wife,  and  she  to  him, 
for  life.  Is  the  marriage  ceremony,  then,  a  curse,  a  hin- 
drance to  vu'tue  and  progress  i 

I  have  known  men  who,  borrowing  money,  refused  to  sign 
any  promissory  note.  They  thought  it  unmanly  and  evidence 
that  I  distrusted  them.  Does  Dr.  Crosby  think  the  world 
should  change  its  customs  and  immediately  adopt  that  plan  ? 

Society  rests  in  all  its  transactions  on  the  idea  that  a 
solemn  promise,  pledge,  assertion  strengthens  and  assures 
the  act.  It  recognizes  this  principle  of  human  nature.  The 
witness  on  the  stand  gives  solemn  promise  to  tell  the  truth ; 
the  ofiacer  about  to  assume  place  for  one  year  or  ten,  or  for 
life,  pledges  his  word  and  oath ;  the  grantor  in  a  deed  binds 
himself  for  aU  time  by  record ;  churches,  societies,  universi- 
ties accept  funds  on  pledge  to  appropriate  them  to  certain 
purposes  and  to  no  other — these  and  a  score  more  of  instances 
can  be  cited.  In  any  final  analysis  all  these  rest  on  the  same 
principle  as  the  temperance  pledge.  No  man  ever  de- 
nounced them  as  unmanly.  I  sent  this  month  a  legacy  to  a 
hterary  institution,  on  certain  conditions,  and  received  in 
return  its  pledge  that  the  money  should  ever  be  sacredly 
used  as  directed.     The  doctor's  principle  would  unsettle 


Reply  of  Wendell  PJiilhps.  61 

Society,  and,  if  o.e  proposed  to  apply  it  to  any  cause  but 
temperance,  practical  men  would  quietly  put  him  aside  as 
out  of  his  head. 

These  cobweb  theories,  born  of  isolated  cloister  life,  do 
not  bear  exposure  to  the  midday  sun  or  the  rude  winds  of 
practical  life.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  theory.  It  must  be 
tested  and  settled  by  experience  and  results.  Thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  attest  the  value  of  the  pledge.  It 
never  degraded ;  it  only  lifted  them  to  a  higher  life.  ' '  Un- 
manly f"  No.  It  made  men  of  them.  We  who  never  lost 
our  clear  eyesight  or  level  balance  over  books,  but  who 
stand  mixed  up  and  jostled  in  daily  life,  hardly  deem  any 
man's  sentimental  and  fastidious  criticism  of  the  pledge  worth 
ans<vering.  Every  active  worker  in  the  temperance  cause 
can  recall  hundreds  of  instances  where  it  has  been  a  mau's 
salvation. 

In  a  rail  way-car  once  a  man  about  sixty  years  old  came 
to  sit  beside  me.  He  had  heard  me  lecture  the  evening  be- 
fore on  temperance.  "■  I  am  master  of  a  ship,"  said  he, 
"sailing  out  of  New  York,  and  have  just  returned  from  my 
fiftieth  voyage  across  the  Atlantic.  About  thirty  years  ago 
I  was  a  sot;  shipped^while  dead-drunk,  as  one  of  a  crew, 
and  was  carried  on  board  like  a  log.  When  I  came  to,  the 
captain  sent  for  me.  He  asked  me :  'Do  you  remember 
your  mother  ? '  I  told  him  she  died  before  I  could  remem- 
ber anything.  'Well/  said  he,  ^'I  am  a  Vermont  man. 
When  I  was  young  I  was  crazy  to  go  to  sea.  At  last  my 
mother  consented  I  should  seek  my  fortune  in  New  York.' 
He  told  how  she  stood  on  one  side  the  garden-gate  and  he 
on  the  other,  when,  with  his  bundle  on  his  arm,  he  was 
ready  to  walk  to  the  next  town.  She  said  to  him :  '  My 
boy,  I  don't  know  anything  about  towns  and  I  never  saw 
the  sea ;  but  they  tell  me  those  great  towns  are  sinks  of 
wickedness  and  make  thousands  of  drunkards.  Now  pro- 
mise me  you'll  never  drink  a  drop  of  liquor.'  He  said :  '  I 
laid  my  hand  in  hers  and  promised,  as  I  looked  into  her 
eyes  for  the  last  time.  She  died  soon  after.  Fve  been  on 
every  sea,  seen  the  worst  kinds  of  life  and  men.  They 
laughed  at  me  as  a  milksop  and  wanted  to  know  if  I  was  a 


52  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence, 

coward  ;  but  when  tboy  offered  me  liquor  I  saw  my  mother 
across  the  gate,  and  I  never  drank  a  drop.  It  has  been  my 
sbeet-anchor.  I  owe  all  to  that.  Would  you  like  to  take 
that  pledge  ?  ^  said  he." 

My  companion  took  it,  and  he  added  :  "It  has  saved  me. 
I  have  a  fine  ship,  wife  and  children  at  home,  and  I  have 
helped  others." 

How  far  that  little  candle  threw  its  beams  !  That  anx- 
ious mother,  on  a  Vermont  hillside,  saved  two  men  to  virtue 
and  usefulness  ;  how  many  more  He  who  sees  all  can  alone 
tell.  But  our  agitation  of  the  drink  question  is  "  bulldoz- 
ing "  and  '^  intimidation."    This  is  only  an  unmanly  whine. 

What  is  the  pulpit?  Does  it  not  take  admitted  truths 
and  press  them  home  on  conscieuce  ?  Or  does  it  not  seek  to 
prove  principles  the  listener  does  not  admit,  and  then  urge 
him  to  their  practice  ?  Does  it  not  criticise,  and  affirm,  and 
denounce,  seeking  to  waken  the  indifferent,  convince  the 
doubting,  and  claim  consistent  action  of  all  '^  Does  It  wait 
until  the  sinner  acknowledges  its  principles  before  it  de- 
nounces his  action  as  a  sinf  By  no  means.  Is  church  dis- 
cipline visited  only  on  those  who  see  and  confess  their  sins? 
Is  it  not  used  to  rouse  them  to  a  sense  of  the  principle  they 
will  not  acknowledge,  and  hold  them  up  to  the  rebuke  and 
take  from  them  the  respect  of  their  fellows  ?  If  our  tempe- 
rance agitation  is  "intimidation,"  then  nine-tenths  of  the 
land's  pulpits  are  bulldozers  and  the  other  tenth  is  useless. 
What  does  the  Bible  say  of  those  who  prophesy  smooth 
things,  and  whose  order  was  Nathan  obeying  when  he  said, 
"Thou  art  the  man "  ! 

I  have  known  even  a  Greek  professor,  when  speaking  in 
downright  earnest,  fling  about  the  keenest  and  roughest 
words  in  the  dictionary  in  the  most  reckless  and  biting 
manner  ;*  yet  I  never  dreamed  of  charging  him  with  seeking 
to  intimidate  his  opponents. 

*  As  illustrating  Dr.  Crosby's  "calmness"  the  Chicago  Advance  says  :  "A 
collection  of  the  dynamic  complimentary  phrases  applied  by  this  '  calm  '  lecturer 
to  the  main  body  of  temperance  people  of  America  would  make  a  curious  para- 
graph. Here  are  some  specimens :  *  Mere  obstinacy  of  opinion  and  personal 
pride '  ;  '  what  a  fearful  prostitution  of  a  noble  word  is  seen  in  the  use  of  the 
word  "  temperance  "  to-day  ! '  '  a^false  flag '  seized  by  '  radical  and  intemperate 


Replij  of  Weiidell  PliilUps.  53 

Dr.  Crosby  says  it  is  false,  our  constant  assertion  that 
moderate  drinking  makes  drunkards.  Will  lie  please  tell  us 
where,  then,  the  drunkards  come  from  ?  Certainly  teetota- 
lers do  not  recruit  these  sweUing  ranks.  Will  he  please  ac- 
count for  the  million -times-repeated  story  of  the  broken- 
hearted and  despairing  sot,  and  of  the  reformed  man,  that 
"  moderate  drinking  lulled  them  to  a  false  security  until  the 
chain  was  too  strong  f(^r  them  to  break  "  ?  Will  he  please 
explain  that  confession  forced  from  old  Sam  Johnson,  and 
repeated  hundreds  of  times  since  by  men  of  seemingly  strong 
resolve  :  ''  I  can  abstain ;  I  can't  be  moderate  "  ? 

Do  not  the  Bible,  the  writers  of  fiction,  the  master  drama- 
tists of  ancient  and  modern  times,  the  philosopher,  the 
moralist,  the  man  of  affairs — do  not  all  these  bear  witness 
how  insidiously  the  habits  of  sensual  indulgence  creep  on 
their  victim,  until  he  wakes  to -find  himself  in  chains  of  iron, 
his  very  will  destroyed  ? 

When  Milton  says,  ''  I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  clois- 
tered virtue,  unexercised  and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies 
out  and  sees  her  adversary,''  Dr.  Crosby,  you  suppose,  inter- 
prets it  as  meaning  that  boys  should  frequent  gambling- 
hells  and  such  resorts,  in  order  to  prove  their  strength  of 
resistance.  But  no ;  he  does  not  mean  any  such  thing.  He 
only  thinks  they  should  face  the  drink  temptation ;  none 
other.  When  you  hear  that  the  New  York  Central  Kailway 
prohibits  the  sale  of  flash  literature  in  its  cars,  perhaps  you 
expect  to  hear  Dr.  Crosby  denounce  that  corporation  as 
emasculating  the  virtues  of  their  travellers  and  making  them 

souls,'  which  '  will  disgust  and  alienate  true  and  enlightened  souls ' ;  '  these  in- 
fatuated defenders  of  the  total-abstinence  principle';  '  these  great  untruths  that 
are  flaunted  on  its  banners  will  disgust  most  men  that  have  brains  and  use  them  *; 
'  its  spirit  of  intimidation  '  and  '  bulldozing,'  the  '  invariable  accompaniment  of 
it  during  its  forty  years'  curriculum  '  ;  'overbearing  and  tyrannical,'  'using  a 
violence  of  language  that  can  admit  of  no  excuse  '  ;  whose  '  principal  agencies 
have  been  falsehood  and  intimidation '  ;  whose '  principles  are  at  war  with  proper 
manliness  or  self-respect';  'upon  the  total  abstinence  system  I  charge  the 
growth  of  drunkenness  in  our  land  and  a  general  demoralization  among  religious 
communities';  'moral  jugglery,'  'a  blunder  that  has  the  proportions  of  a 
crime '  ;  of  the  pledge,  a  '  most  pernicious  instniment  for  debauching  the  con- 
science,' '  always  an  injury  and  never  a  help ' ;  the  wild  '  bashi-bazouks  of  con- 
troversy,'etc.,  etc," 


54  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstiiience. 

unmanly.    Not  at  all.    He  approves  it.     It  is  only  drink 
temptations  that  he  considers  good  training  for  heroic  men. 

You  might  suppose  that  Dr.  Crosby  would  recommend  to 
colleges  to  substitute,  in  their  study  of  the  hterature  of  fic- 
tion, the  works  of  Eugene  Sue,  Dumas,  and  Balzac,  in  the 
place  of  George  Eliot,  Walter  Scott,  and  Jane  Austen,  since 
these  last  would  afford  no  proof  of  a  lad's  ability  to  with- 
stand the  harm  of  pernicious  novels.  Oh  !  no.  I  assure  you 
that  is  a  mistake.  Dr.  Crosby  confines  the  new  discovery 
of  fortifying  virtue  by  steeping  it  in  temptation  wholly  and 
exclusively  to  rum.  Hannah  More's  demand  of  ^'  consis- 
tency "  he  thinks  of  no  consequence  whatever. 

But  our  movement  is  the  delight  of  rumsellers  and  the 
great  manufacturer  of  drunkards.  How  is  it,  then,  that  anx- 
ious and  terror-stricken  rumsellers  assemble  in  conven- 
tions to  denounce  us  and  plan  methods  of  resisting  us  ?  No 
such  conventions  were  ever  heard  of  or  needed  until  the  last 
twenty  years.  How  is  it  that  they  mob  our  lecturers  and 
break  up  our  meetings  ?  Was  Dr.  Crosby  or  any  of  his  class 
ever  mobbed  by  rumsellers  ?  How  is  it  that,  the  moment 
we  get  one  of  the  prohibitory  laws,  ''which  delight  rum- 
sellers," passed,  these  delighted  men  form  parties  to  defeat 
every  man  who  voted  for  it,  crowd  the  lobbies  to  repeal  it, 
and  never  rest  until,  by  threat  or  bribes,  they  have  repealed 
it  ?  If  rumsellers  long  and  pray  for  the  coming  of  the  mil- 
lennium of  prohibition,  why  don't  they  all  move  down  to 
Maine,  and  get  as  near  to  the  desired  heaven  as  they  can  ? 
If  rumsellers  dehght  in  our  total-abstinence  labors,  how  un- 
grateful in  them  to  allow  their  organs  all  over  the  world  to . 
misrepresent  and  deny  what  httle  success  even  Dr.  Crosby 
allows  we  have  had  in  Maine !  They  ought  to  chuckle  over 
it  and  scatter  thencTs  far  and  wide.  When  Dr.  Crosby 
has  answered  half  these  questions,  we*ave  some  more  diffi- 
culties to  propound  which  trouble  us,  about  the  unaccount- 
able freaks  of  these  delighted  rumsellers,  who,  delighted  as 
they  are  with  our  work,  yet  never  can  bear  or  praise  the 
very  men  who,  Dr.  Crosby  says,  are  constantly  employed 
spending  time  and  money  in  '*  delighting  "  these  unreason- 
able fellows. 


Reply  of  Wendell  Phillips.  55 

We  are  the  cause  of  all  this  drunkenness,  the  temper- 
ance movement  is  a  failure,  and  always  must  be  a  failure, 
and  ought  to  be  so. 

I  will  prove  that  Cliristianity  is  a  failure  in  the  same  way. 
The  famous  unbelievers,  down  from  Voltaire,  through  Mill, 
to  the  last  infidel  critic,  prove  Christianity,  by  the  same 
sort  of  argument,  to  be  a  failure  and  the  cause  of  most 
of  the  evils  that  burden  us.  Exaggerate  all  the  evil  that 
exists,  especially  those  vices  that  will  never  wholly  die 
while  human  nature  remains  what  it  is ;  belittle  and  cast  in- 
to shade  all  the  progress  that  has  been  made ;  dwell  with 
zest  on  the  new  forms  of  sin  that  each  age  contributes  to 
the  infamy  of  the  race ;  keep  your  eyes  firmly  in  the  back 
of  your  head,  and  insist  that  there's  nothing  equal  to  what 
we  had  in  old  times — not  even  the  snow-storms  or  the  St. 
Michael  pears — and  the  thing  is  done. 

Before  our  movement  began  three-quarters  of  the  farms 
of  Massachusetts  were  sold  under  the  hammer  for  rum- 
debts.  You  could  not  enter  a  public- house  in  country  or 
city,  of  the  first-class  or  the  smaller  ones,  except  through  a 
grog-shop.  Their  guests  felt  mean  if  they  did  not  at  din- 
ner order  some  kind  of  wine,  and  often  ordered  it  when  they 
did  not  wish  it.  Now  the  grog -room  is  hidden  from  sight ; 
men  slink  into  it ;  and  not  more  than  one  man  in  ten  at  the 
most  fashionable  hotels,  and  not  one  in  fifty  in  common  inns, 
orders  wine  at  dinner.  Then  the  sideboard  of  every  well- 
to-do  house  was  covered  with  liquors,  and  every  guest  was 
urged  to  drink  -,  the  omission  to  do  which  would  have  been 
held  a  gross  neglect,  if  not  an  insult.  No  man  was  buried 
without  a  lavish  use  of  hquor ;  no  stage  stopped  without 
the  traveller  being  thought  mean  if  he  did  not  help  the 
house  by  taking  a  drink.  Now  one  may  travel  hundreds  of 
miles  on  rails  which  allow  no  liquor  in  their  stations.  Every 
farmer  furnished  drink  to  his  men;  famous  doctors  went 
drunk  to  their  patients;  the  first  lawyer  in  the  Middle 
States  was  not  singular  when  he  held  on  by  the  rail  in  or- 
der to  stand  and  argue,  half-drunk,  to  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  ;  rich  men  saw  to  it  that  every  clergy- 
toan  who  attended  a  convention  was  plied  with  wine ;  and 


56  Moderation  vs.  Total  AJjstinence. 

the  preacher  of  the  Concio  ad  Clerum  was  fed  on  brandy- 
punch  to  be  on  a  more  exhilarated  level  than  his  hearers. 
If  a  man  caught  sight  of  a  grog-shop,  he  was  as  sure  he  had 
arrived  in  a  Christian  land  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor  felt 
when  he  got  sight  of  a  gibbet.  Dr.  Crosby  then  had  every 
maD,  lay  and  clerical,  on  his  side  in  construing  the  Bible  j 
whereas  now  we  are  in  a  healthy  majority.  Then  a  few 
scattered  temperance  tracts,  hke  rockets  In  a  night,  only 
betrayed  how  utterly  the  world  was  in  the  desert  on  this 
subject;  now  a  temperance  literature,  crowded  with  facts, 
strong  in  argument,  filled  with  testimonies  from  men  of  the 
first  eminence  in  every  walk  of  hfe,  in  every  department  of 
science  and  hterature,  challenges  and  defies  all  comers. 
Then  the  idea  of  total  abstinence  was  not  so  much  denied 
as  wholly  unknown;  now,  if  New  England  were  polled  to-day, 
our  majority  would  be  overwhelming.  Then  all  men  held 
liquors  to  be  healthy  and  useful;  now  seventy  men  out  of 
a  hundred,  whatever  their  practice,  deny  that  claim,  and 
the  upper  classes,  well  informed  and  careful  of  health,  lead 
the  way  in  giving  up  the  use.  Then  the  medical  profession 
waded  in  the  same  slough  of  indulgence  and  ignorance  as 
their  patients  ;  now  the  verdict  of  the  profession  is  undoubt- 
edly and  immeasurably  against  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks 
at  all  in  health,  and  but  seldom  in  favor  of  it  in  disease. 

We  have  driven  the  indulgence  in  drink  into  hiding  places, 
and  for  the  first  time  the  Legislature  is  obliged  and  wilhng 
to  prohibit  the  use  of  screens  to  hide  rum-drinkers  from  the 
public  view  they  dread.  Is  not  this  skulking  evidence  of 
weakening  ^ 

Sixty  years  ago  the  Legislature  passed  a  few  formal  laws 
perfunctorily,  and  dismissed  the  whole  subject.  But  ten 
years  ago  Liquor  gathered  at  the  State-House  all  the  ex- 
perts of  social  science,  the  lights  of  the  medical  profession, 
all  the  famous  science  from  Harvard  College,  and  retained 
an  ex-governor,  at  vast  expense,  to  marshal  this  host,  in 
order  to  resist  Dr.  Miner  and  a  few  Bible-twisters,  whom 
Liquor  seemed  somehow  to  dread,  although  they  had  dis- 
gusted and  repelled  all  the  sensible  men  in  the  State. 

Of  course  this  was  before  Dr.  Crosby  had  communicated 


Reply  of  Wendell  Pliillips,  57 

to  the  liquor-dealers  the  comforting  fact  that  the  temperance 
movement  was  a  failure,  and  that  they  ougbt  to  be  delighted 
with  it  and  with  Dr.  Miner  and  his  Bible-twisters,  and  that 
they  were  delighted  with  it,  whether  they  themselves  knew 
it  or  not ! 

And  far  above  all,  set  on  a  hill,  a  great  State,  Maine, 
challenges  the  world  to  show  her  equal  in  an  intelligent, 
law-abiding, -economical,  and  self-restraining  population; 
while  smaller  examples  cluster  round  her,  here  and  across 
the  Atlantic ;  and  the  haughty  Episcopal  Church,  hardest 
and  last  to  be  roused  to  any  reform,  has  put  on  record  in  its 
Convocations  the  most  convincing  and  the  most  instructive 
array  of  facts  and  evidence  on  total  abstinence  that  any  ec- 
clesiastical body  ever  contributed  to  social  science.  It  is 
the  ocean-wave  kissing  the  Alps.  You  would  weary  if  I 
continued  the  summary. 

Even  if  the  statistics  showed  that  the  amount  of  liquor 
consumed  increased  as  fast  as  our  population  and  wealth  do 
— which  they  do  not  show,  but  just  the  contrary — that  would 
not  be  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  that  our  movement  has 
failed.  The  proper  comparison  is  between  what  we  were  in 
1820  and  what  tve  sliould  have  been  noiv  had  not  some  be- 
neficent agency  arrested  our  downward  progress.  These 
evils,  left  to  themselves,  increase  by  no  simple  addition,  but 
in  cubic  ratio. 

Does  Dr.  Crosby  fancy  this  active  movement  and  vast 
mass  of  fact,  opinion,  and  testimony  can  exist  without  bene- 
ficial influence  in  an  age  ruled  by  brains  ?  He  does  not, 
then,  underslar.d  moral  forces  or  his  own  times.  When, 
twenty-five  years  ago,  Frederick  Douglas  was  painting  the 
anti-slavery  movement  as  a  failure  unless  we  would  load 
our  guns,  Sojourner  Truth  asked:  ''Frederick,  is  God 
dead  ?"  When  I  see  the  doctor's  unbelief  in  the  efficacy  of 
the  moral  power  and  the  weight  of  this  mass  of  conviction, 
I  am  tempted  to  ask  him  :  "  Is  your  God  dead "? " 

Dr.  Crosby  closes  by  stating  his  plan  and  panacea.  It  is 
a  regulated  license.  I  will  not  delay  you  by  criticising  his 
or  any  other  license  plan.  The  statute-books  in  forty  States 
are  filled  with  the  abortions  of  thousands  of  license  laws  that 


58  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

were  Dever  executed,  and  most  of  them  were  never  intended 
to  be.  We  have  as  good  a  license  law  in  this  State  as  was 
ever  devised,  and  yet  it  leaves  such  an  amount  of  gross^  de- 
fiant, unblushing  grog-selling  as  discourages  Dr.  Crosby 
and  leads  him  to  think  nothing  at  all  has  been  done.  His 
own  city,  with  license  laws,  is  yet  so  ruled  and  plundered  by 
rum  that  timid  statesmen  advise  giving  up  republicanism 
and  borrowing  a  leaf  from  Bismarck  to  help  us. 

License  has  been  tried,  on  the  most  favorable  circumstances 
and  with  the  best  backing,  for  centuries — ten  or  twelve,  at 
least;  yet  Dr.  Crosby  stands  confounded  before  the  result. 
We  have  never  been  allowed  to  try  prohibition,  except  in 
one  State  and  in  some  small  circuits.  Wherever  it  has 
been  tried  it  has  succeeded.  Friends  who  know  claim  this. 
Enemies,  who  have  been  for  a  dozen  years  ruining  their 
teeth  by  biting  files,  confess  it  by  their  lack  of  argument 
and  lack  of  facts,  except  when  they  invent  them.  With  such 
a  record  may  we  not  say  that,  even  if  we  have  no  claim 
to  be  considered  Crosby  Christians,  we  have  a  right  to  ask 
one  fair  trial  of  what  has,  at  least,  never  been,  like  license, 
demonstrated  a  hundred  times  to  be  a  failure  ? 


A  REPLY 

TO 

Dr.  Crosby's  ''Calm  View  of  Temperance." 


By  MES.  J.  E.  FOSTER,  of  Iotta. 


Afi  Address  delivered  in  Tretnont  Temple^  Boston^ 
February  14,  1881. 


WHEN  Zenobia,  the  Queen  of  the  East,  rode  upon  her 
white  steed  at  the  head  of  her  armies  to  save  Pal- 
myra from  the  grasp  of  Roman  avarice,  she  needed 
no  new  anointing.  Palmyra  was  in  danger  and  she  was 
queen ;  she  looked  from  the  glittering  domes  of  her  proud 
capital  to  the  hosts  of  Rome  under  its  proud  Aurelian,  and, 
urged  by  royal  impulse,  she  went  forth.  The  women  of 
America  are  queens,  every  one ;  from  early  girlhood  they 
have  been  taught  from  pulpit,  press,  and  platform  that  by 
virtue  of  their  motherhood  they  held  undisputed  sway  over 
the  home. 

This  kingdom  in  the  home  is  undisputed  by  the  pure  and 
good.  It  is  assailed  by  intemperance,  it  is  threatened  by 
the  drinking  customs  of  society,  and  in  defence  of  the  home 
woman  has  engaged  in  distinctive  temperance  work. 

Five  weeks  ago  to-day  a  cultured  Christian  gentleman, 
the  head  of  a  great  educational  institution,  a  man  called  of 
God  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  bis  Son,  and  set  apart  by  the 
Christian  Church  to  do  that  work,  stood  on  this  platform 
and  assailed  the  fundamental  principles  which  underlie  our 
defence  of  ourselves  in  this  work  and  our  appeals  to  all  good 
people  to  aid  us  by  their  co-operation,  or  at  least  by  their 

59 


60  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

good  wishes.  Good  and  able  men  from  this  and  other  plat- 
forms, from  many  Christian  pulpits  and  through  the  press, 
have  answered  what  of  argument  the  gentleman's  address 
contained ;  they  have  mourned  its  arrogance  and  rebuked 
its  assaults.  They  have  done  so  on  broad  and  general 
grounds,  not  in  a  spirit  of  partisanship  or  in  defence  of  any 
narrower  interests  than  those  involved  in  the  weal  of  our 
common  humanity.  I  come  to-day  by  invitation  of  the 
Boston  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  by  the  per- 
mission of  these  honorable  gentlemen,  and  by  your  suffer- 
ance, to  review  the  address  from  a  woman's  standpoint,  and 
to  set  forth  the  causes  which  have  led  the  women  of  this 
land  to  take  up  arms  against  the  drinking  customs  of  so- 
ciety. 

Honored  as  I  am,  kind  friends,  by  your  presence,  and  real- 
izing in  what  city  I  am,  'tis  not  you  alone  I  see,  but  the 
faces  of  women  in  homes  all  over  the  land;  some  of  these 
are  beautiful  as  yours  j  some  are  very  bare ;  some  are  among 
the  hills  of  the  East  and  some  on  the  prairies  of  the  West ; 
some  of  them  are  sitting  by  the  cradles  of  little  children, 
some  are  bending  over  the  washtub  or  before  the  sewing- 
machine.  There  is  despair  in  some  of  their  faces,  sorrow  in 
all,  for  they 

WEEP  FOR  THEIR  CHILDREN, 

and  will  not  be  comforted  because  they  are  not,  or,  madden- 
ed by  long-continued  abuse  and  neglect,  they  have  at  last 
died  to  all  joy  or  comfort,  and  only  wait  for  the  grave  to 
give  the  rest  that  rum  has  cheated  them  out  of  here.  These 
are  not  all  I  see,  for  close  among  the  throng  is  the  great 
com]3any  of  husbands,  fathers,  sons,  and  brothers  who  are 
not  wholly  lost,  who  only  circle  in  the  outer  rim  of  this  ter- 
rible maelstrom  of  strong  drink^but  as  the  years  go  on  will 
be  carried  faster  and  faster,  nearer  and  nearer,  to  the  vortex 
from  which  there  is  no  escape;  and  near  every  one  of  these 
some  woman  watches,  some  woman  waits.  I  hear  the  plead- 
ing voice,  I  see  the  tear-dimmed  eye,  I  can  almost  feel  the 
feverish  breath  upon  my  cheek.  And  little  children,  too, 
are  in  the  foreground  of  this  scene,  not  plump  and  rosy,  not 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster,  61 

gay  and  merrj^  with  the  rush  of  childhood,  but  quiet  and 
pitiful,  with  pale  faces,  and  thin  lips,  and  frightened  mien ; 
old  are  they,  though  only  a  few  summers  have  their  little 
barks  been  afloat  on  life's  rough  sea.  These,  kind  friends, 
are  my  constituents  ;  'tis  for  them  I  speak  to-day. 

The  remarkable  address  of  the  reverend  gentleman  con- 
tains but  a  few  salient  points: 

^'  The  Bible  does  not  teach  total  abstinence  " ; 

^'  The  results  of  the  investigations  of  science  do  not  de- 
mand it " ; 

''  Human  experience  does  not  justify  our  plea  for  it"  ; 

Distilled  liquors  should  be  excluded  from  '•  common  use  as 
a  beverage  both  by  pubUc  opinion  and  by  law  " ; 

The  use  of  vinous  and  malt  liquors  should  be  under  '^  wise 
regulation  " ; 

And  that  the  great  body  of  temperance  advocates  have 
employed  very  questionable,  and  in  many  instances  highly 
objectionable,  methods  in  the  ^'  total-abstinence  crusade  or 
propaganda.''^ 

These  are  the  strategic  points  in  this  latest  marshalling 
of  forces  against  the  home. 

TEEASON"  AGAINST  THE  STATE 

consists  in  levying  war  against  it,  in  adhering  to  its  ene- 
mies or  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  them.  The  great  chan- 
cellor would  not  make  war  upon  the  home ;  too  often  has  he, 
in  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  his  sacred  ofiQce,  and  by 
virtue  of  authority  vested  in  him  by  the  State,  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  home  at  the  holy  marriage  altar ;  too  often 
have  his  hands  been  laid  upon  the  heads  of  httle  babes 
whom  proud  and  thankful  parents  have  early  brought  to  the 
altars  of  religion ;  too  often  has  he  carried  the  comforts  of  our 
holy  Christianity  to  homes  where  the  sable  wing  of  the 
death  angel  had  left  its  dark  shadow.  Oh !  no ;  he,  a 
minister  of  the  Lord  Jesus— he  would  not  assail  the 
home,  he  would  not  levy  war  against  it;  but  he  has 
given  aid  and  comfort  to  its  enemies,  and  that  is  treason  to 
the  home.  All  over  the  land  the  hosts  of  sin  rejoice ;  in  the 
grog-shops  they  laugh  and  drmk  to  his  health ;  in  the  fashion- 


62  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence, 

able  club  they  smile  and  praise  tbe  wiue  of  which  they  taste 
^'  in  moderation  " ;  in  the  home  the  poor  eld  mother  says  to 
her  wayward  boy  :  "  Promise  me,  son,  sign  this  pledge,  that 
I  may  be  sure  you'll  never  drink  again,"  and  he  replies : 
"'Tis  unmanly,  mother,  a  strait-jacket,  and  beneath  my 
self-respect."  From  breaking  hearts  there  comes  the  cry : 
'^  Noble  sir,  you  have  given  aid  and  comfort  to  our  enemies. 
Had  it  been  an  enemy  we  could  have  borne  it,  had  it  been 
he  that  hated  us  we  would  have  hid  ourselves ;  but  it  was 
thou,  our  guide  and  our  acquaintance.  We  took  sweet  coun- 
sel together,  and  walked  to  the  house  of  God  in  company." 
Surely  we  are  wounded  in  the  house  of  our  friends. 

Does  the  Bible  teach  total  abstinence,  directly  or  implied- 
ly ?  We  answer,  in  both  ways.  For  the  critical  exegesis  of 
the  passages  which  in  our  King  James's  translation  are  ren- 
dered wine  we  refer  the  honest  enquirer  to  the  publications 
of  the  National  Temperance  Society,  of  which  Hon.  Wm.  E. 
Dodge,  of  New  York,  is  president,  and  which  are  supported 
by  many  eminent  Christian  ministers.  This  Society  has  col- 
lected the  testimony  of  Hebrew  and  Grreek  scholars  as  to  the 
meaning  of  the  terms  used ;  the  weight  of  testimony  is  in 
support  of  the  position  taken  by  the  leading  temperance  ad- 
vocates of  this  country  and  of  Great  Britain — namely,  that 
many  words  are  used  in  the  original  tongues  to  express  the 
many  kinds  of  wine  used  in  Bible  times;  that  the  words 
translated  ^'  wine,"  when  it  is  spoken  of  as  "  good,"  and  as 
typical  of  God's  grace,  and  a  thing  to  be  desired,  refer  to  the 
grape  still  hanging  on  the  vine,  or  to  its  expressed  juice  pre- 
served from  contact  with  the  air,  and  thus  free  from  fermen- 
tation; that  the  wine  that  is  a  '^  mocker,"  that  ^'  moveth  itself 
aright,"  the  strong  drink  that  '^  is  raging,"  is  given  in  other 
words,  as  indeed  it  was  quite  another  thing ;  that  in  pas- 
sages where  no  condemnation  or  commendation  of  the  wine 
is  given,  and  where  a  generic  term  is  used,  which  may,  with 
no  violence  to  the  rules  of  interpretation,  be  understood  to 
mean  fermented  or  unfermented,  then  the  harmony  of  Scrip- 
tures, the  spirit  of  their  teachings,  must  be  studied,  that  the 
narrative  may  be  rightly  understood  or  the  admonition  re- 
ceived.     This  *Hwo-wine   theory"  is  not  a  trumped-up 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster.  63 

'^  Scripture-twisting"  to  suit  the  purposes  of  special  pleaders, 
or  a  '^  begging  of  the  whole  question,"  but  is  a  calm  view  of 
the  real  meaning  of  terms  used  by  men  writing  as  they  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

But  to  the  common  English  reader,  who  h^s  not  facilities 
of  critical  study  at  hand,  there  comes  the  argument  of 

THE  GENERAL  SPIRIT  AJSJi  TEACHING 

of  God's  word.  Drunkenness  is  everywhere  denounced,  even 
the  looking  upon  it  (the  wine)  "  when  it  is  red,  when  it 
giveth  its  color  in  the  cup,  when  it  moveth  itself  aright"; 
the  curses  pronounced  upon  drunken  nations  and  upon  him 
who  giveth  his  neighbor  drink  j  the  fearful  setting  forth  of 
the  desolations  of  that  people  when  priest  and  prophet  err 
through  strong  drink,  who*' err  in  vision  and  stumble  in 
judgment/'  Surely  Isaiah's  prophetic  soul  must  have  seen 
in  vision  this  year  of  grace  ! 

Did  our  Saviour  use  fermented  wine  ?  Let  us  walk  softly 
here ;  let  us  not  toss  about  opinions  and  arguments  as 
children  at  play  toss  the  snow-balls  their  own  hands  have 
made.  He  was  our  example.  He  came  to  fulfil  the  law. 
He  wrought  his  first  miracle  at  Cana  to  show  forth  his  glory. 
He  ate  the  Passover  with  his  disciples,  wherein  nothing  that 
had  ferment  of  any  sort  might  be  allowed ;  'twas  thus  he 
instituted  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Sup[)er,  preserved  in 
the  church  '4n remembrance"  of  him  through  all  the  cen- 
turies since  he  went  away.  The  very  essence  of  the  religion 
he  taught  is  self-denial,  self-renunciation  for  the  good  of 
others.  But  the  temperance  that  is  at  the  top  round  of  the 
ladder  of  Christian  graces  enumerated  by  the  apostle  is  not 
such  as  Dr.  Crosby  would  fain  have  us  believe  is  the  con- 
summation of  all  manhness;  true  temperance  is  the  moderate 
use  of  good  things  and  total  abstinence  from  bad  things. 
Alcoholic  drinks  are  *'  bad  things  " — bad  according  to  Scrip- 
ture and  science,  and  bad  as  shown  by  the  testimony  of  hu- 
man experience.  How  a  man  set  apart  to  study  God  in  his 
word  and  in  his  works,  and  then  to  lead  the  people  as  he 
himself  shall  be  led,  guided  always  by  the  great  problems  of 


64  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstine7ice. 

human  destiny — how  lie  can  teach  that  the  Bible  looks  with 
any  degree  of  allowance  upon  even.moderate  drinking  is  ex- 
plainable upon  no  other. theory  than  that  the  old  Scripture 
is  again  illustrated:  ''Wine  is  a  mocker,  strong  drink  is 
raging,  and  tojiosoever  is  deceived  thereby  is  not  iviseP 

Again  :  Do  the  investigations  of  science  demand  total 
abstinence  ?  We  answer :  '^  Yes."  No  erudition  is  needed 
to  show  the  sin  and  shame  of  drunkenness ;  everybody  ac- 
cepts the  truth. 

THE  EEAL  NATTJEE  OE  ALCOHOLIC  DEINXS 

is  not  so  well  understood.  Science,  rightly  interpreted,  is 
always  the  handmaid  of  religion  and  the  servant  of  man ; 
she  has  for  half  a  century  cried — not  with  the  pleading 
tones  of  the  philanthropist,  or  the  trumpet-blasts  of  the 
watchman  on  Zion's  walls,  or  the  clear  bugle-notes  of  the 
reformer,  but  with  the  hard,  unfeeling  voice  of  cold  intellec- 
tuality— ^'  It  is  a  poison !  it  is  a  poison !''  Others  have  an- 
swered: '' 'Tis  the  abuse  and  not  the  use  that  makes  such 
sad  havoc  with  our  poor  humanity;  if  people  only  would 
stop  when  they  have  had  enough  there  would  be  no  need  of 
all  this  onslaught."  Again  science  answers :  ''  One  drop 
is  too  much."  It  has  been  clearly  shown  that  alcohol  is  not 
changed  by  chemical  action  in  the  laboratory  of  the  human 
stomach ;  it  did  not  itself  contain  any  of  the  elements  found 
in  the  fruit  from  whose  decay  it  had  its  origin. 

A  great  chemist  says : 

*'  Fermentation  is  nothing  else  than  putrefaction  of  a  sub- 
stance containing  no  nitrogen.  It  is  excited  by  the  contact 
of  all  bodies  the  elements  of  which  are  in  an  active  state  of 
decomposition.  It  continues  till  the  original  compounds  are 
wholly  destroyed"  (Turner's  Chemistry). 

Here  I  have  another  eminent  witness : 

''  It  did  not  require  college  training,"  writes  Dr.  A.  H.  Mc- 
Murty,  ^'but  merely  my  sense  of  smell  to  tell  me,  what 
chemical  analysis  has  so  often  demonstrated,  that  alcohol 
comes  out  of  the  body  as  it  goes  into  it,  which  is  a  pretty 
suggestive  hint  that  the  body  wants  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it,  but  treats  it  as  an  intruder,  as  it  treats  every  other 


y  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster.  65 


foreign  body,  and  gets  rid  of  it  as  soon  as  possible  "  (Dr. 
A.  H.  McMurty  in  Medical  Teynperance  Journal,  January, 
1871,  p.  89). 

IT  DOES  KOT  KEPAIR  WASTE 

and  supply  tissue,  for  it  contains  none  of  the  elements  of 
which  the  body  is  built  up.  I  will  quote  another  expert 
witness :  '^  It  has  been  admitted  by  those  who  differ  from 
total-abstainers  most  largely  that  it  cannot  be  proved 
that  alcohol  is  able  to  evolve  force  in  the  body  under  any 
circumstances,  or  that  it  is  capable  of  being  changed  or 
transmuted  In  any  way  within  the  system  into  an  element  of 
physical  well-being"  (''Stimulants  and  Strength,"  by  Dr.  H. 
S.  Patterson). 

<'  When  alcohol  is  taken  in  small  quantities  repeated  dai- 
ly, the  individual  usually  slowly  increases  in  weight,  not 
from  increased  nutrition,  but  from  retardiug  the  waste  and 
retaining  the  old  atoms  longer  in  the  tissues"  ("  Verdict  of 
Science,"  by  Dr.  N.  S.  Davis,  page  6). 

Alcoholic  drinks  do  not  promote  digestion.  Dr.  Cheyne 
says  that  nothing  more  effectively  hinders  digestion  than  al- 
cohol ;  that  many  hours,  and  even  a  whole  night,  after  a  de- 
bauch in  wine  it  is  common  enough  to  reject  a  part  orwhole 
of  the  dinner  undigested.  I  hold  that  those  who  abstain 
from  alcohol  have  the  best  digestion,  and  that  more  instan- 
ces of  indigestion,  of  flatulency,  of  acidity,  and  of  depres- 
sion of  mind  and  body  are  produced  by  alcohol  than  by  any 
other  single  cause  (  ''Results  and  Eesearches on  Alcohol," 
by  Dr.  B.  W.  Richardson,  p.  13). 

Alcoholic  drinks  do  not  protect  the  system  from  cold. 

"  Like  ether  and  chloroform,  its  presence  diminishes  the 
sensibility  of  the  nervous  system  and  brain,  thereby  render- 
ing the  individual  less  conscious  of  all  outward  and  exterior 
impressions.  The  alcohol  does  not  relieve  the  individual 
from  cold  by  increasing  his  temperature,  nor  from  heat  by 
cooling  him,  nor  from  weakness  and  exhaustion  by  nourish- 
ing bis  tissues,  nor  yet  from  affliction  by  increasing  nerve- 
power  ;  but  simply  by  diminishing  the  sensibihty  of  his  nerve- 
structures,  and  thereby  lessening  his  consciousness  of  im- 


66  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

presslons,  whether  from  cold  or  heat  or  pain  "  (Dr.  Davis 
in  "Verdict  of  Science,"  p.  5). 
The  use  of  alcoholic  drinks  is  the 

DIEECT  CAUSE  OE  MUCH  DISEASE, 

and  renders  the  system  unable  to  resist  the  attacks  of  mala- 
dies -which  might  otherwise  be  cured  by  the  physician's  skill. 

"  It  is  the  nature  of  intoxicating  liquors  to  produce  the 
disease  just  described  [vinomania,  or  craving  for  drink]. 
Hence  all  who  drink  them  regularly  to  any  extent,  even 
though  it  be  within  the  so-called  bounds  of  moderation, 
must  expect  to  suffer;  indeed,  there  are  very  few  moderate 
drinkers  who  do  not  siiffer  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  from 
this  disease  "  ("  Bacchus  Dethroned/'  p.  21). 

And  yet  another  witness  on  that  point :  '^  I  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  attributing  a  very  large  proportion  of  some  of  the 
most  painful  and  dangerous  maladies  which  come  under  my 
notice,  as  those  which  every  medical  man  has  to  treat,  to 
the  ordinary  and  daily  use  of  fermented  drink  taken  in 
quantities  which  are  conventionally  deemed  moderate  "  (Sir 
Henry  Thompson,  Tract  113). 

Kev.  Sydney  Smith,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Edinburgh 
Bevieiv,  says :  ^^  Let  me  state  some  of  the  good  arising  from 
abstaining  from  all  fermented  liquors.  First,  sweet  sleep 
(having  never  known  what  sweet  sleep  was).  I  sleep  like  a 
baby  or  ploughboy.  If  I  wake,  no  needless  terrors,  no  black 
visions  of  life,  but  pleasing  hopes  and  pleasing  recollec- 
tions "  (Bell's  ^'  Report,'^  p.  47). 

' '  It  is  well  known  to  the  physicians  of  Mobile  and  New  Or- 
leans that  the  victims  of  yellow-fever  are  chiefly  those  who 
drink  freely  "  (Dr.  Drake,  of  Cincinnati,  quoted  in  Reid's 
'' Cyclopaedia,"  p.  522). 

It— the  use  of  alcohohc  drinks— deteriorat es  the  quality  of 
the  human  race  by  the 

OPEKATION  OF    THE  LAWS  OF  HEREDITY, 

which  visit  the  iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children 
unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation. 
'^  No  vice  is  more  hereditary  than  intemperance.    I  be- 


BcpJy  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster.  G7 

lieve  the  mere  habit  of  intemperaDce  in  the  individual 
rarely  produces  this  condition  [insanity],  but  that  it  is  usu- 
ally a  result  of  the  baneful  heritage  entailed  on  their  de- 
scendants by  intemperate  progenitors;  the  vice  of  one  gen- 
eration becoming  the  weakness  of  the  next,  liable  to  be 
evoked  at  any  time  by  [indulgence  in]  the  parental  vice, 
and  thus  bringing  a  double  curse"  (''Dr.  Yellowlees,"  p. 
80). 

''  Not  one  of  the  transmitted  wrongs,  physical  or  mental,  is 
more  certainly  passed  on  to  those  yet  unborn  than  the 
wrongs  that  are  inflicted  by  alcohol  "  (' '  Cantor  Lectures," 
p.  178). 

"  Lord  Shaftesbury,  having  acted  as  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mission of  Lunacy  in  England  for  sixteen  years,  says  that 
fully  six-tenths  of  all  the  cases  of  insanity  in  that  country 
arise  from  their  habits  of  intemperance  "  (Dr.  Lees's  Prize 
Essay). 

Dr.  Crosby  claims  that  alcohol  is  ''  nature's  provision." 
Science  says : 

''  Alcohol  is  a  purely  artificial  product,  obtained  only  by 
carefully  carried  (sut  chemical  methods.  It  exists  nowhere 
in  nature"  (Dr.  Niel  Carmichael,  in  Medical  Temperance 
Journal,  April,  1880,  p.  125). 

Dear  friends,  does  not  scientific  investigation  teach  total 
abstinence  ? 

Again  :  Does  human  experience  justify  our  plea  for  total 
abstinence  f 

THE   TESTIMONY   OF    HUMAN  EXPEEIENCE 

is  that  all  drunkards  come  from  the  ranks  of  moderate  drink- 
ers. The  testimony  of  science  is  that  alcoholic  drinks  do  not 
supply  any  want  of  the  body  when  in  health.  The  mildest 
tone,  then,  in  which  human  experience  speaks  is,  "  Alcoholic 
drinks  as  a  beverage,  even  in  moderation,  do  no  good;  they 
are  likely  to  do  great  harm."  Thus  total  abstinence  is  the 
only  ground  of  absolute  safety.  I  do  not  need  at  length  to 
review  the  learned  doctor's  talk  about  the  pledge ;  for  years 
it  has  been  an  honored  instrument  in  the  restraint  of  the 
young  who  have  never  learned  to  drink,  and  a  declaration 


68  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstineiice, 

of  independence  to  tbe  slaves  of  appetite.  His  objections 
to  it  that  ic  is  '^  unmanly ^''^  that  it  is  a  '^substitute  for 
principle,"  that  it  is  "  always  an  injury  and  never  a  help  to 
a  true  morality,"  need  only  to  be  stated  to  carry  their  own 
refutation. 

From  the  pledge-book  of  John  B.  Gough ;  from  the  mul- 
titudes who  knelt  before  the  cross,  and  from  the  lips  of  the 
good  priest.  Father  Mathew,  took  the  pledge;  from  the 
Bethel  and  the  Cook  mission  in  your  own  city  ;  from  Jerry 
McAuley's  mission  in  New  York;  from  Farwell  Hall  in  Chi- 
cago ;  from  prayer-rooms  all  over  tlie  land,  where  poor  ap- 
petite-bound souls  are  helped,  by  warm  appeal,  by  earnest 
expostulation,  by  loving  sympathy,  to  make  another  asser- 
tion of  manliness  and  in  honest  effort  to  shake  ofi"  the  demon 
drink ;  from  multitudes  of  children  in  our  Sunday-schools 
and  Bands  of  Hoijc,  and  round  our  firesides,  who  have  pro- 
mised they  would  never  drink,  and  signed  the  pledge  with  the 
unskilled  hand  of  childhood;  yes,  from  lonely  rooms  where 
repentant  sons  and  self  accusing  husbands,  with  honest 
hearts  and  manly  purpose,  have  before  God,  and  to  the  soul 
next  them  here  below,  taken  a  solemn  promise  never  again 
to  touch,  taste,  or  handle  the  accursed  stuff — from  these 
comes  this  testimony  :  ''  The  pledge  has  been  to  us  a  help ; 
it  was  the  door  to  a  new  and  better  life." 

In  a  little  book  which  I  have  not  here  to-day,  but  which 
I  thought  I  had,  are  certain  memoranda  of  temperance  in- 
formation which  I  carry  for  my  own  use.  There  is  a 
pledge;  very  few  names  are  in  it — not  more  than  fifty.  I 
do  not  use  it  in  public  meetings,  but  merely  for  chance  occa- 
sions; but  I  could  tell  you  many  a  history  of  haroic  effort, 
of  terrible  struggle  that  is  recorded  here.  There  are  names 
of  men  and  women  and  of  little  children.  One  of  them  is 
pi'inted  by  a  little  fellow  who  could  n<>t  write,  a  child  in  a 
beautiful  home  whose  hospitality  was  once  offered  me  ;  his 
mother  wanted  him  to  promise  me,  as  he  promised  her,  that 
he  would  never  drink,  and  so  his  name  is  theie,  printed  be- 
cause he  could  not  write  it.  Was  that  mother  putting  that 
boy  in  a  ''  strait-jacket "  ?  Oh  !  no ;  she  was  putting  around 
him   a   bulwark  that  might  save  him.    Oh !  the  joy  the 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Poster.  r;0 

pledges  in  this  little  book  have  brought  to  the  hearts  of 
those  whose  names  are  here ;  the  joy  they  have  brought  to 
those  to  whom  they  were  so  dear  !  Kind  friends,  I  know  a 
womaa,  whose  home  is  in  the  West,  who  is  the  mother  of  a 
son  dear  to  her  as  her  very  life.  She  has  done  the  best  she 
could  with  him,  but  now  he  is  away  at  an  institution  of 
learning;  he  is  near  to  the  great  city  of  Chicago,  with  its 
three  thousand  grog-shops.  She  knows  he  is  under  almost 
continual  fire  from  these  intrenchments  of  the  armies  of 
Bacchus  and  Gambrinus.  She  consecrated  him  in  infancy 
to  Grod,  and  he  has  for  himself  acknowledged  the  claims  of 
our  holy  Cliristianity  and  the  duties  of  the  church;  but 
years  ago  he  signed  the  pledge,  and  the  promise  on  that  bit 
of  paper  where,  in  his  childish  hand,  the  words  are  written, 
is  very  precious  to  his  mother,  and  has  been  a  safeguard  to 
him.  Oh  !  no,  Dr.  Crosby ;  human  experience  testifies  that  it 
is  a  good  thing  to  sign  the  x)ledge. 

Not  all  will  keep  it?  No,  there  are  many  repulses  in  the 
great  battle  of  human  life.  Terrible  the  conflict  is,  and 
some  shall  fall  and  fall,  and  yet  at  last  be  victors.  In  the 
State-House  yonder  are  kept  the  flags  carried  by  Massa- 
chusetts regiments  in  the  war.  Some  of  them  are  bright 
and  clean,  and  could  have  seen  little  service ;  others  are 
faded  and  torn ;  others  are  little  else  than  the  bare  stafi" 
from  which  the  beautiful  colors  once  waved,  but  they  are 
there  noiv,  saved  from  the  smoke  and  shot  of  battle.  They 
have  been  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and  they  were  some- 
times trailed  in  the  dust  by  traitors ;  bat  they  were  rescued, 
and  are  now  more  precious  to  this  commonwealth  because 
saved  at  such  terrible  cost.  Some  of  those  that  sign  the 
pledge,  and  break  it  again  and  again,  and  try  again  and 
again— these  shall  come  up  at  last,  '^  saved  tJiough  as  hy 
fire:' 

Yes,  human  experience  does  justify  our  plea  for  the  total- 
abstinence  pledge. 

Again  Dr.  Crosby  says:  '' Distilled  liquors  should  be  ex- 
cluded from  common  use  as  a  beverage  both  by  pubhc  opi- 
nion and  by  law."  In  this  we  heartily  agree  with  the 
learned  gentleman  ;  but  when  he  says  '^  the  use  of  vinous 


70  Moderation  vfi.  Total  Abstinence. 

and  malt  liquors  should  be  under  wise  regulations  "  we  de- 
mur. 

THESE  MILDER  LIQUOES 

are  intoxicating  in  proportion  as  they  contain  much  or  little 
of  the  poison  alcohol.  They  are  not  drunk  for  the  grape,  the 
barley,  the  hops;  these  could  be  procured  in  other  forms  in 
greater  pmity,  and  at  much  less  cost.  'Tis  the  stimulation 
of  the  alcohol  the  drinker  wants.  And  the  exclusion  of 
these  vinous  and  malt  liquors  by  '^  public  opinion  and  by 
law  "  is  justified  not  alone  because  they  do  themselves  in- 
toxicate, but  because  experience  shows  that  their  use  leads 
to  the  use  of  distilled  liquors,  which  even  Dr.  Crosby  admits 
should  be  excluded  because  of  their  known  deleterious 
results. 

What  shall  the  State  do  in  its  relation  to  this  traffic  ?  It 
cannot  enforce  total  abstinence  by  law — that  would  be 
sumptuary  legislation  and  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  our  civi- 
lization. The  law  does  not  deal  with  individuals  for  the 
individual's  good ;  it  does  not  regulate  private  acts,  unless 
such  acts  directly  interfere  with  the  rights  of  others.  It 
does  not  enforce  all  the  claims  of  the  moral  law,  though  it 
must  never  operate  in  violation  of  any  of  its  mandates.  The 
Bible  says,  '^  Thou  shalt  not  lie."  A  man  may  knowingly 
and  willingly  deceive;  he  may  in  his  heart  purpose  and 
plan,  and  his  lips  may  speak  the  wicked  lie,  and  yet  the  law 
be  unable  to  touch  him.  But  if  he  lies  on  paper ;  if  he  pro- 
mises to  pay  or  to  do,  and  does  not  pay  or  does  not  do,  the 
law  steps  in  and  says:  ''You  must  do  what  you  said  you 
would  " — not  that  the  man  may  be  made  pure  in  heart  and 
right  before  God,  but  that  civil  society  may  be  protected 
from  failure  in  its  commercial  or  general  interests. 

Society  does  not  say  a  man  shall  not  drink  liquor.  He 
may  drink,  and  drink,  and  drink,  and  unless  he  staggers  in 
the  street  or  lies  in  the  gutter— unless,  by  his  being  in  the 
condition  of  dnmkenness,  he  becomes  a pubhc  nuisance — the 
law  does  not  interfere,  and  then  not  for  his  own  sake  but  for 
the  sake  of  society,  that  is  offended  by  the  sight  of  his 
drunkenness  or  endangered  by  his  possible  and  probable 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster,  71 

acts  caused  by  drunkenness.  Political- economists  tell  us 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  pauperism,  insanity,  and  crime 
of  the  country  is  caused  by  intemperance,  and  it  uses  such 
methods  as  it  thinks  proper  to  suppress  intemperance.  'Tis 
the  right  of  self-protection  that  inheres  in  the  body  pohtic, 
just  as  it  is  the  first  law  in  individual  life. 

THE  EIGHT  OF  THE  STATE 

to  regulate  or  prohibit  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  intoxi- 
cating liquors  has  been  again  and  again  affirmed  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It  is  not  denied  by 
any  able  jurist,  though  much  talk  is  had  as  to  the  propriety 
of  the  exercise  of  that  right. 

0  dear  friends !  when  you  are  considering  this  great 
question  of  temperance  legislation,  make  people  state  ex- 
actly what  they  mean.  Call  for  some  specific  statement, 
and  do  not  try  to  answer  till  you  get  it.  I  well  remember  a 
learned  gentleman,  whose  name  is  familiar  to  you,  in  whose 
home  I  was  and  to  whom  I  recited  in  algebra,  and  I  some- 
times was  wonderfully  puzzled,  and  would  go  to  him  and 
say:  "I  wish  you  would  help  me;  I  don't  understand  it." 
' '  Well,  what  don't  you  understand  ?  "  he  would  ask  me.  But 
all  I  knew  was,  the  whole  thing  was  in  a  mist.  ^'  Well,  my 
dear,"  he  would  say,  ''  when  I  know  just  what  it  is  you  don't 
understand,  then  I  will  try  to  help  you."  And  when  I  had 
found  out  exactly  what  I  didn't  know,  I  found  I  knew  the 
problem  before  me.  So  in  this  matter,  when  our  opponents 
stand  and  proclaim  against  prohibitory  legislation,  because 
they  are  puzzled  about  this  or  that,  make  them  stand  and 
state  just  what  they  mean;  and  when  they  have  stated  the 
case  they  will  be  willing  to  leave  the  platform  which  they 
themselves  have  laid  down. 

1  said  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  had  over 
and  over  again  confirmed  the  right  of  the  State  to  prohibit. 

Justice  McLean  has  said  :  "  A  license  to  sell  an  article, 
foreign  or  domestic,  as  a  merchant,  or  innkeeper,  or  vic- 
tualler, is  a  matter  of  police  and  revenue,  tvithin  the  power 
of  the  State  "  (5  Howard,  589).  And  again  :  '^  It  is  the  settled 
construction  of  every  regulation  of  commerce  that,  under 


'72  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

the  sanction  of  its  general  laws,  no  person  can  introduce 
into  a  community  malignant  diseases,  or  anything  which 
contaminates  its  morals  or  endangers  its  safety  "  (Ibid.) 

There  are  lawa  that  keep  malignant  fevers  out,  and  to 
prevent  boats  with  pestilence  on  board  coming  up  from  New 
Orleans.  There  are  laws  against  the  circulation  of  obscene 
books  and  pictures ;  and,  on  the  same  general  principles, 
there  are  laws  against  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  Intoxi- 
cating liquors.  What  more  do  you  ask  in  support  of  my 
theory  ?  And  notice,  dear  friends,  I  am  not  reading  from 
the  enthusiastic  appeal  of  some  temperance  orator;  I  am 
not  quoting  to  you  the  words  of  some  special  pleader ;  I  am 
not  using  the  words  of  the  beloved  lady  who  is  our  queen  in 
this  temperance  work,  because  they  might  be  overdrawn, 
but  I  am  using 

THE  LANGUAGE   OF  THE   SUPEEME   COUET 

of  the  United  States.    You  cannot  go  behind  those  returns. 

''If  the  foreign  articles  be  injurious  to  the  health  or 
morals  of  the  community,  a  State  may,  in  the  exercise  of 
that  great  and  comprehensive  police  power  which  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  its  prosperity,  prohibit  the  sale  of  it." 
That  you  will  find  in  the  5th  Howard,  on  page  592.  And 
again :  "  No  one  can  claim  a  license  to  retail  spirits  as  a 
matter  of  right  "  (5  Howard,  page  592). 

Saloon-keepers  sometimes  talk  about  their  rights,  and  say 
the  State  has  no  right  to  prohibit  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  intoxicating  liquors.  But,  as  you  see,  the  law  says : 
"No  one  can  claim  a  license  to  retail  spirits  as  a  matter  of 
right." 

And  again  I  quote  from  the  same  authority :  ''If  any 
State  deems  the  retail  and  internal  traffic  in  ardent  spirits 
injurious  to  its  citizens,  and  calculated  to  produce  idleness, 
vice,  or  debauchery,  I  see  nothing  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  to  prevent  it  from  regulating  or  restraining 
the  traffic,  or  from  prohibiting  it  altogether,  if  it  thinks 
proper." 

The  clear  brain  of  Massachusetts  once  said  that  it  had  the 
right,  and  it  did  prohibit  it,  and  the  State  of  Iowa  says  it 


tte2oty  of  Mrs.  J.  E,  Foster.  73 

now.  (Applause.)  That  cheer  came  in  too  soon.  We  pro- 
hibit distilled  liquors,  but  we  let  in  wine  and  beer  a  la  Crosby. 
Justice  McLean  says  any  State  may  prohibit  this  traffic  if 
it  deems  it  "  calculated  to  produce  idleness,  vice,  or  de- 
bauchery." 

IS  IT  so? 

Ask  the  gentlemen  who  preside  in  your  courts  and  repre- 
sent the  judiciary  of  Massachusetts;  ask  the  honorable 
Mayor  of  Boston  ;  ask  those  gentlemen  who  know  and  are 
competent  witnesses,  and  may  be  brought  here  and  sworn, 
if  it  does  not  produce  ''  idleness,  vice,  or  debauchery." 
Yes,  yes,  yes!  Close  the  saloons  of  Boston,  and  you  may 
about  clear  out  its  police  courts.  Close  the  saloons  of 
Boston,  and  a  large  number  of  men  who  walk  about  the 
streets,  dressed  in  blue  coats  and  brass  buttons,  in  a  splendid 
state  of  preservation,  may  be  dispensed  with.  Last  evening 
I  spoke  in  one  of  your  suburban  towns,  and  the  minister 
who  presented  me  in  his  pulpit  passed  to  me  a  report  in 
which  it  was  stated  that  a  day  or  two  before  a  young  man 
of  twenty-two— just  ready,  you  see ;  the  law  couldn't  sell  to 
him  until  he  was  twenty-one,  so  he  was  just  ready,  a  fresh 
and  beautiful  victim— had  been  sold  three  glasses  of  brandy, 
taken  to  the  police-station,  and  there  had  died.  Now,  dear 
friends,  I  suppose  his  mother,  if  he  has  one,  is  broken- 
hearted to-day ;  I  suppose  his  sisters,  if  he  has  any,  are 
broken-hearted  to-day ;  and  I  suppose  his  young  wife,  if  he 
had  one— why,  the  life  has  gone  out  of  her  heart  to-day. 
But  never  mind  about  that ;  the  State  does  not  consider 
women's  hearts — not  at  all.  What  does  the  State  consider  ? 
That  it  has  lost  a  citizen ;  that  if  that  man  had  lived  he 
would  have  paid  for  his  bringing-up.  Do  you  say  that  is  a 
rough,  cold  way  to  look  at  it  ?  I  know  it;  but  we  are  talk- 
ing coldly  to-day ;  we  are  taking  calm  views  of  things,  we 
are.  The  State  regards  every  citizen  as  of  so  much  value 
to  it.  Why  ?  Because  he  is  able  to  increase  the  State's 
wealth,  whether  by  labor  of  hand  or  brain;  he  is  a  pro- 
ducer of  wealth,  and  when  he  dies  he  is  so  much  lost  to  the 
State,  so  much  value  gone  out  of  it ;  and  hence  the  State, 


74  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstineyice, 

to  protect  itself  from  this  loss  through  'idleness,  debauch- 
ery, or  vice,"  may  put  away  the  liquor-trafiQc  and  suppress 
it  throughout  her  borders. 

IN  THE   DOG  ORDINANCES 

of  great  cities  is  a  familiar  illustration  of  the  exercise  of  this 
police  power. 

I  want  to  maintain  my  position  as  a  member  of  the  great 
company  of  temperauce  reformers  going  up  and  down  the 
land,  and  so  I  will  tell  you  a  story.  Away  out  en  the  prairie 
there  was  a  woman  who  lived  in  a  little  town.  She  had  two 
boys,  and  during  one  hot  summer — one  awful  summer,  so 
hot  it  was  on  the  prairies  that  they  came  near  burning  up — 
a  dog  in  the  town  bit  her  boys  and  they  died.  And  the 
woman  grieved,  and  her  husband  grieved  ;  and  she  went  to 
her  neighbors,  and  they  sympathized  with  her,  and  they  had 
it  written  up  in  the  paper,  so  that  everybody  heard  about  it 
and  everybody  was  sorry.  A  woman  in  a  town  ten  miles 
away  heard  about  it,  and  her  s\mpathy  with  the  woman 
was  increased  by  her  solicitude  for  her  own  boys — for  she 
had  two  boys — and  she  thought :  We  have  dogs  in  our  town, 
and  my  bojs  might  be  bitten  the  same  as  those  others,  and 
die  the  same  way  they  died.  Of  course  her  sympathies 
were  more  intense  by  her  sohcitude  for  herself.  She  was  so 
alarmed  and  distressed  that  she  talked  with  her  husband 
about  it.  Of  course  she  did  that.  It  is  the  first  thing  a 
woman  does,  anyhow.  Not  because  Paul  told  her  to  do  it — 
not  that.  She  did  it  simply  because  it  is  woman's  nature, 
to  do  it,  and  if  Paul  had  had  a  wife  he  never  would  have 
written  that ;  he  would  have  known  she  would  do  it  anyhow. 

So  this  woman  went  to  her  busband  in  great  solici|||jde 
and  sorrow,  and  said  :  '^  My  dear,  did  you  hear  about  those 
boys  over  there  ?  "  and  he  replied,  ''  Yes,  my  dear,  I  did; 
isn't  it  dreadful  r'  ''  Well,"  said  she,  ''I  should  think  it 
was  dreadful  that  two  boys  in  one  house  should  be  bitten  by 
a  little,  miserable  dog.  Just  think  of  it !  Are  you  not  afraid, 
John,  that  our  boys  may  be  bitten?"  ''  Well,  Mary,"  said 
he,  ''I  have  thought  about  it,  and  it  is  a  perfectly  awful  thing 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster.  ^5 

to  think  of,  too.'^  ''  Well,  I  should  think  so,  I  should  think 
so,"  said  she;  and  they  talked  and  talked  about  it  till  she 
became  distracted,  and  said,  "John,  don't  you  think  any- 
thing can  be  done  about  it?"  ''Well,  I  don't  know,''  he 
said.  '-It  is  one  of  the  first  principles  of  good  government 
that  a  man's  property  must  be  protected,  and  if  a  man  put 
his  property  into  a  dog  the  G-overnment  must  take  care  of 
him  and  protect  his  property."  "  But  is  a  dog  more  precious 
than  a  boy  ?''  ''  Well,  no,  of  course  not,  Mary  ;  but  I  do 
not  know" — and  he  talks,  and  talks,  and  talks;  you  know 
it,  women,  you  have  heard  it  all.  Fiijally,  getting  no  com- 
fort by  discussing  it,  and  in  her  great  solicitude,  she  goes 
across  the  street  to  another  woman.  And  this  other  woman 
has  two  boys,  and  those  women  talked  and  talked,  because 
their  interests  were  ommon.  Gentlemen,  we  women  have 
so  many  common  interests — more  than  you  have !  A  wo- 
man's station  in  Ufe,  her  surroundings,  do  not  influence  her 
motherhood  as  a  man's  surroundings  influence  him. 

These  two  women  talk  on  the  ground  of  a  common  inte- 
rest in  their  children,  and  get  no  satisfaction  from  each 
other,  because  they  can  do  nothing  but  talk.  And  the  first 
woman  tells  what  her  husband  says,  and  the  second  tells 
what  her  husband  said  to  her.  and  the  testimony  of  the  two 
husbands  is  brought  up  in  that  little  committee  of  two. 

I  won't  burden  you  by  telling  you  more  than  that  they 
talked,  and  talked,  and  talked,  and  gained  no  satisfaction 
anywhere ;  and  so  they  went  down-town  to  the  mayor  of 
that  little  town,  and  they  talked  to  him  about  it,  and  he  ex- 
pressed greit  concern  and  sympathy  with  the  u'omen  in  their 
solicitude  for  their  children  Be  was  a  wonderful  gentleman. 
I  am  mistaken ;  it  was  not  the  mayor,  it  was  the  chief  of 
police. 

Let  us  remove  the  scene  to  the  office  of  the  chief  of  police. 
He  talked  with  them  about  their  concern  and  alarm  for  their 
boys,  and  said  (what  men  always  say  when  we  go  to  them 
with  our  troubles! :  ^'  Xow,  dear  ladies,  we  sympathize  with 
you;  we  know  how  you  must  feel ;  of  course  you  have  great 
solicitude — of  couise  you  have;  and  it  would  be  a  fearful 
thing  if  any  dog  in  our  town  should  go  mad  and  bite  your 


'%  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence, 

boys  "  And  tbey  Ihink  tlicy  k;io\v  that  just  iibout  as  well  as 
the  chief,  how  terrible  that  thing  would  be. 

They  talk  and  talk,  aud  ask  for  an  ordinance  requiring 
the  police  of  the  city  to  shoot  any  dog  not  muzzled.  He  re- 
plies just  about  as  the  husbands  talked,  saying  that  this 
could  not  be  allowed ;  a  proper  and  good  thing,  aud  yet  he 
is  not  quite  sure  about  it.  And  they,  becoming  weary,  for 
they  have  talked  about  it  a  good  while  this  time,  begin  to 
cry. 

Women  often  do  so,  gentlemen,  and  you  know  you  do  not 
like  to  have  them.  This  man  did  not  like  to  have  women 
cryiug  around,  and  he  said  :  ''  Ladies,  I  have  given  you  my 
syni[)athy  and  expressed  my  solicitude,  but,  if  you  will  ex- 
cuse me,  let  me  give  you  a  little  advice."  1  hey  thought 
that  comfort  was  coming  now.  He  says:  ''Dear  ladies, 
your  concern  for  your  boys  is  justifiable;  but  have  you 
thought  of  this :  you  could  do  better  service  in  your  home 
than  here  ?  Have  you  thought  of  training  your  boys  proper- 
ly, and  telling  them  about  this  disease  of  hydrophobia,  how  a 
dog  looks  when  he  is  going  mad  ?  If  you  teach  your  chil- 
dren at  home  there  is  no  danger  of  hydrophobia."  They 
looked  at  one  another,  and  said  :  "  We  have  taught  our  boys 
in  the  home ;  we  thought  of  that  years  ago ;  we  knew  what 
hydrophobia  does,  and  so  we  have  taught  our  boys  always  of 
the  terrible  danger  if  bitten  by  a  mad  dog.  We  have  told 
our  childi-en  to  run  whenever  they  see  a  dog ;  but,  sir,  the 
dogs  are  everywhere  :  they  are  on  the  road  to  school,  on  the 
road  to  the  church ;  and  the  only  way  to  do,  it  seems  to  us,  is 
to  put  the  dogs  out  of  the  way."  And  you  know  that  those 
women  were  right,  were  they  not,  gentlemen? 

But  how  is  it  when  women  come  to  supervisors,  common 
councils,  and  legislatures,  and  ask  for  laws  to  prevent  their 
sons  and  brothers  and  husbands  from  being  led  down  to 
drunkards'  graves  ? 

WHAT  IS  THE   REPLY   WE   HEAR? 

Not  always,  gentlemen,  for  some  of  you  are  always  gene- 
rous and  noble,  and  the  number  is  increasing  every  day,  but 
some  men  say  to  us  women :  "  If  you  do  your  duty  in  your 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster.  77 

home  and  teach  your  boys  what  a  terrible  thing  intempe- 
rance is,  if  you  throw  around  them  the  surroundings  and 
comforts  of  a  beautiful  home,  they  will  never  go  astray." 

0  gentlemen !  tell  that  to  the  women  of  this  land  who 
are  the  mothers  of  the  sixty  thousand  who  went  down  last 
year.  Some  of  those  mothers  were  as  true  and  faithful  as 
your  mother  was  to  you;  but  they  went  down,  slain  by  riMU, 
tempted  by  the  saloon  and  the  open  grog-shop,  and  it  is  the 
very  refinement  of  cruel  y  for  men  to  say  to  women  that  if 
they  did  their  duty  in  their  homes  there  would  be  no  trouble 
from  intemperance.  We  have  done  the  best  we  could,  and 
now  we  want  you  to  help  us. 

But  I  must  hasten.  This  pohce  power  of  which  I  have 
spoken  can  say  to  the  rumseller  :  '<  You  shall  not  make,  you 
shall  not  sell."  This  power  to  which  I  have  called  your  at- 
tention is  in  the  State,  not  in  the  general  government ;  and 
for  a  moment  let  us  consider  the  relations  of  the  general 
government  to  the  liquor-traffic  in  the  State.  The  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  gives  to  Congress  certain  powers. 
It  has  no  other.  Among  those  powers  the  pohce  power  is 
not  to  be  found.  That  rests  in  the  State,  not  in  the  general 
government ;  the  relation  of  the  general  government  to  the 
liquor-traffic  is  a  purely  commercial  relation.  It  does  not 
deal  with  the  traffic  as  the  State  governments  do  in  sup- 
pressing the  evils  of  intemperance.  Not  at  all.  The  gene- 
ral government  does  not  care  about  the  evil  of  intemperance ; 
it  only  deals  with  the  traffic  for  the  purposes  of  revenue.  It 
says  money  must  be  raised  to  run  the  machine,  and  it  must 
be  gotten  from  the  commercial  interests  of  the  land ;  and  so 
it  taxes  certain  articles  of  commerce. 

It  taxes  whiskey  and  tobacco — and  we  are  coming  for  your 
tobacco  presently,  gentlemen;  we  haven't  time  now,  but  we 
shall  by  and  by.  So  the  general  government  comes  within 
the  commjmwealth  of  Massachusetts,  and  says  to  the  Med- 
ford  men  (I  mean  its  rum  makers)  and  to  distillers  every- 
where :  "  If  you  make  rum  you  must  pay  so  much  per  gallon 
as  revenue  to  the  government."  It  does  not  say :  ''You  can 
distil,  or  you  can  brew."  It  could  not  say  that.  The  police 
power  says  that,  and  the  police  power  is  in  the  State,  not  in 


78  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

the  geoeral  government.  But  you  say :  ''  What  does  the 
man  get!  Isn't  it  a  license!"  It  used  to  be  called  a  li- 
cense, but  it  is  not  now.  It  is  a  special  tax  raised  by  the 
general  government.  When  he  pays  his  money  he  gets  a 
paper  saying  that  he  has  paid  it.  It  is  no  protection  to  him 
against  the  State. 

But  you  say:  ''Does  not  the  general  government  protect 
the  importer?"  It  protects  him  while  the  liquors  are  in  his 
possession  in  the  origiaal  package,  or  in  the  hands  of  ihe 
person  to  whom  he  has  sold  them,  as  long  as  the  packages 
are  unbroken ;  but  a  package  broken  is  never  safe  after  the 
duties  are  paid  upon  it  which  admit  of  its  introduction. 
Thus  John  Doe  imported  liquors  to  the  value  of  $200,000, 
and  paid  his  duties,  and  said :  ''  I  am  going  to  get  my  money 
back,"  and  so  opens  his  packages  and  draws  off  some  liquors 
from  the  casks,  and  begins  to  sell ;  but  then  Massachusetts 
comes  in  and  says:  "No,  sir;  you  don't  sell  one  glass  of 
that  liquor." 

"■  Not  when  I  have  imported  it  f  "  "  No."  ''  Not  when  1 
have  paid  the  tax  f  "  Never  mind  about  that,"  the  police 
power  in  the  State  says.  He  asks  the  question  :  *'  Does  not 
the  right  to  im[)ort  imply  a  right  to  sell  ?"  And  the  law 
answers:  ''  No,  sir;  it  does  not."  "  Cannot  I  sell  the  liquors 
I  imported?"  '' No,  you  cannot."  ♦'Why?"  ''Because 
the  police  power  thinks  you  ought  not  to."  It  is  a  question 
of  police  power  entirely  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  com- 
monwealth. Let  me  give  you  authority.  If  I  were  before  a 
court  or  a  jury  I  would  never  i:et  a  judgment  or  a  verdict  if 
I  did  not  give  authorities,  and  as  great  interests  are  involved 
in  the  cause  I  plead  to-day  as  in  any  case  in  any  court  of 
justice.  Not  one  man  is  on  trial  for  his  life  here  to  day,  but 
our  children,  all  of  them. 

A  little  while  ago,  in  the  performance  of  my  professional 
duties,  I  sat  by  the  side  of  a  poor  woman  under  sentence  of 
death,  she  having  been  accused  and  convicted  of  the  crime 
of  murder.  The  Supreme  Court  granted  her  a  new  trial, 
and  I  was  trying  to  save  her  from  capital  punishment. 

But  as  I  sat  there  that  day  with  that  poor  woman  at  my 
side,  there  was  the  judge,  there  was  the  prosecutor  for  the 


Rephj  of  Mrs,  J.  E,  Foster.  79 

State,  all  the  machinery  of  civil  law,  following  up  that  wo- 
man who  was  charged  with  having  killed  a  man.  And  it 
was  right  it  should  be  so;  but  when  I  thought  that  in  that 
same  State  there  were  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men  who 
were  licensed  by  the  State  to  do  worse  things  than  that 
woman  did,  I  said  :  ^'  This  is  not  as  it  ought  to  be,  not  as  it 
should  be — not  at  all." 

In  support  of  the  position  I  have  taken,  that  the  general 
government  does  not  protect  the  liquor-trafBc  after  the 
original  packages  are  broken,  or  after  it  has  passed  from 
the  hands  of  the  importer, 

JUSTICE  DAKEELS, 

of  the  Supreme  Court,  said  of  imports  that  are  cleared  of 
all  control  of  the  government  which  permits  their  introduc- 
tion : 

"  They  are  like  all  other  property  of  the  citizen,  and  should  be 
equally  the  subjects  of  domestic  regulation  and  taxation,  whether 
owned  by  an  impoi'ter  or  his  vender,  or  may  have  been  purchased 
by  cargo,  package,  bale,  piece,  or  yard,  or  by  hogsheads,  casks,  or 
bottles  "  (5  Howard,  614). 

In  answering  the  argument  that  the  importer  purchases 
the  right  to  sell  when  he  pays  duties  to  the  government, 
Justice  Daniels  continues  to  say : 

"No  such  right  as  the  one  supposed  is  purchased  by  the  im- 
porter, and  no  injury  in  any  accurate  sense  is  inflicted  on  him  by 
denying  to  him  the  power  demanded.  He  has  not  purchased  and 
cannot  purchase  from  the  government  that  which  it  could  not 
ensure  to  him — a  sale  independently  of  the  laws  and  policy  of  the 
States  "  (5  Howard,  616). 

The  reason  that  Massachusetts  does  not  put  away  its  im- 
porters and  wholesalers  and  retailers  is  because  Massachu- 
setts don't  want  to.  Massachusetts  can  do  it.  It  is  in  the 
power  of  the  State  to  do  it,  and  that  power  is  wholly  legiti- 
mate. Then,  if  prohibition  is  the  right  of  the  State,  how 
shall  it  prohibit  ?  What  sort  of  a  law  shall  take  hold  of  it  ? 
I  am  here  this  afternoon,  gentlemen,  to  ask  fov  constitutional 
prohibition.  That  is  the  latest  thought  of  our  temperance 
workers.     It  is  the  conclusion  to  which  they  have  come 


80  Moderation  vs.  Total  Aistiimice. 

after  long  years  of  patient  investigatioo.  I  ought  to  say, 
perhaps,  t  is  the  coDclusion  to  which  many  of  them  have 
come — to  which  the  association  which  I  represent  has  come. 

REASONS   FOR   CONSTITUTIONAL     AMENDMENT. 

For  as  clear  and  concise  a  statement  as  I  have  been  able 
to  make  allow  me  to  call  your  attention  to  a  tract  prepared 
by  myself  and  published  by  the  National  Temperance  So- 
ciety of  New  York,  eutitled  ''  Reasons  for  a  Constitutional 
Amendment." 

I.  The  province  of  free  civil  government  is  so  to  consoli- 
date and  arrange  the  general  sentiment  and  principles  of 
the  people,  in  a  system  of  rules  and  regulations,  as  will  se- 
cure individual  protection  and  conserve  the  greatest  good  to 
the  greatest  number. 

II.  This  system  of  rules  and  regulations  is  prescribed  in 
what  is  known  as  the  civil  law.  Civil  law  is  either  consti- 
tutional or  statutory. 

III.  The  constitution  is  the  original  statement  of  princi- 
ples and  agreement  of  mutual  obligations,  with  such  amend- 
ments as  the  people  from  time  to  time  may  make. 

IV.  The  statutes  are  ruJes  and  regulations  in  detail,  set- 
ting forth  the  rights,  duties,  and  remedies  of  the  citizen 
under  the  constitution,  and  the  mode  of  procedure  by  which 
these  may  be  enforced. 

Y.  The  constitution  is  adopted  by  the  direct  vote  of  the 
people,  and  can  be  amended  or  repealed  by  them  alone. 
Statutes  are  made  and  repealed  by  the  people's  representa- 
tives— the  Legislature. 

VI.  A  universal  sentiment  prevails  that  intemperance  is  a 
gigantic  evil.  This  sentiment,  embodied  in  rules  and  regu- 
lations, has  given  diverse  legislation  concerning  the  liquor- 
traffic. 

VII.  The  right  of  the  State  to  regulate  or  prohibit  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  has  been  many 
times  affirmed  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

VIII.  The  history  of  this  legislation  demonstrates  that 
I)rohibition  is  the  only  legal  remedy  for  the  evils  of  intempe- 
rance—that it  alone  protects  the  individual  and  the  State, 


Reply  of  3frs,  J.  E.  Foster.  81 

IX.  Prohibiti  m  may  be  embodied  in  constitutions  and 
statutes.  If  in  tlie  constitutions,  it  is  the  direct  voice  of  the 
people,  and  can  be  repealed  by  them  alone.  If  in  a  statute, 
it  is  the  creation  of  the  Legislature,  and  subject  to  the 
tricks  of  politicians,  the  devices  of  demagogues,  and  the 
general  fluctuations  of  partisan  interests. 

X.  All  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  prohibitory  statutes 
anplies  with  equal  force  to  constitutional  prohibition  ;  and, 
furthermore,  constitutional  law  possesses  dignity  and  perma- 
nence, and.  being  the  voice  of  a  majority  of  the  voters  of 
the  State,  will  secure  to  itself  a  better  enforcement  than 
bare  statutes  can  receive.  All  parties  and  factions  are  con- 
fessedly bound  by  constitutional  law. 

In  short :  1.  The  province  of  government  is  to  protect  the 
individual  and  conserve  the  general  good. 

2.  Government  does  this  through  tbe  civil  law,  constitu- 
tional and  statutory. 

3.  Constitutional  law  is  organic. 

4.  Statutory  law  is  functional. 

5.  The  constitutional  is  the  voice  of  the  people;  the  stat- 
utes, of  the  Legishiture. 

6.  Intemperance  is  an  evil  demanding  some  sort  of  legis- 
lation. 

7.  The  State  has  the  right  to  regulate  or  prohibit. 

8.  Prohibition  onli/  lemedies  the  evil. 

9.  Prohibition  may  be  constitutional  or  statutory. 

10.  Constitutional  prohibition  is  permanent  and  maybe 
enforced.  Statutory  prohibition  is  fluctuating  and  difficult 
of  enforcement. 

Application  of  the  foregoing  truths  : 

It  is  the  duty  of  every  temperance  man,  woman,  and 
child  to  labor  with  head,  hand,  and  heart  for  constitutional 
prohibition. 

HOW  DOES   CONSTITUTIONAL  LAW  GEOW  ? 

At  first  reformers  are  thought  to  be  wild.  Boston  once 
thought  some  of  its  reformers  were  wild.  It  would  go  on 
its  kfiees  to  them  now  and  wipe  the  dust  from  their  shoes. 
By  and  by  other  men  take  up  the  cry,  and  many  people 


82  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence^ 

hear,  and  at  last  all  have  to  listen,  for  there  is  such  a  din  in 
the  air.  Then  on  and  on  the  sentiment  grows,  and  the  peo- 
ple become  educated  on  the  subject,  legislation  is  had  upon 
it,  and  by  thinking  and  thinking  there  is  evolved  out  of 
thought  the  grand  principle  underlying  it  all,  and  then  the 
people  get  ready  to  pat  it  into  constitutional  law.  It  was  so 
in  the  matter  of  slavery,  and  I  need  only  refer  to  it  to  recall 
it  all  to  you.  Gentlemen,  some  of  you  here  to-day  whose 
hairs  are  white  remember  how  Boston  mobbed  you  in  the 
street,  and  stid  the  idea  grew  on  and  on,  and  a  great  many 
listened,  thea  eveiybody  listCLcd,  ai  d  then  came  legislation, 
and  then  war  and  the  legislation  (.f  the  sword,  and  then 
down  into  the  Constitution  went  what  ?  The  grand  princi- 
ple that  the  cidor  of  a  man's  face  did  not  make  any  difie- 
rence  in  his  relation  to  the  government.  This  matter  of 
intemperance  has  been  talked  about  and  talked  a»bout,  and 
legislation  has  been  tried  in  various  forms,  and  the  conclu- 
sion has  at  last  been  reached  that  the  true  line  of  attack 
upon  the  liquor-traffic  is  to  educate  the  people  until  they 
are  ready  to  put  it  into  the  Constitution.  A  constitutional 
law  is  permanent ;  for  the  people  make  it  and  only  the  peo- 
ple can  repeal  it.  It  is  dignified  because  it  is  the  will  of  the 
people ;  not  the  result  of  partisan  influences,  but  an  upris- 
ing of  the  whole  people.  Gentlemen,  I  am  not  here  to  talk 
about  partisanship.  I  believe  in  party  spirit.  We  must 
have  it  in  order  to  secure  the  necessary  friction  and  agita- 
tion that  comes  from  contending  party  interests.  The  other 
day  as  I  looked  through  the  glass  in  your  State-house  and 
saw  those  old  flags,  tattered  and  torn  with  shot  and  shell, 
and  soiled  and  ragged  as  they  are,  some  of  them  with  only 
the  staff  left,  I  said  to  myself:  "  I  don't  wonder  that  the 
men  of  Massachusetts  love  the  party  that  carried  the  flag." 
I  don't  wonder  at  that,  but  I  say  when  a  great  moral  ques- 
tion is  to  be  settled  it  is  a  good  thing  to  get  it  out  of  party 
lines  if  you  can.  If  it  is  submitted  as  constitutional  law 
every  individual  man  votes  upon  it,  not  as  a  Eepublican  or 
a  Democrat,  but  as  a  citizen. 

But  some  objector  says  :  "  Well,  you  must  get  it  through 
the  Legislature  anyhow."    Surely.    ''  Then  if  you  have  a 


Reply  of  Mrs,  J.  E.  Foster.  83 

Legislature  that  will  submit  it  to  the  people,  won't  the  same 
Legislature  give  you  a  statute  ?  "  No,  uot  at  all !  The  same 
man  that  will  vote  to  submit  the  question  to  you  won't  vote 
on  the  bare  question.  Why  f  Well,  they  don't  like  to  do  it. 
It  is  hard  to  bear  responsibility,  and  the  men  whose  heads 
are  clear  enough  always  to  know  what  is  right,  or  to  think 
they  know,  which  answers  the  same  purpose,  are  very  few. 

I  don't  want  to  speak  lightly  of  the  average  legislator;  I 
wouldn't  in  this  honored  presence,  surely,  but  I  may  speak 
of  our  Legislature  away  out  West  in  Iowa.  I  find  usually 
about  three  classes  of  men  in  that  Legislature ;  a  fine  Legisla- 
ture we  have  in  Iowa.  There  were  a  few  grand  men,  strong 
men,  men  that  had  convictions  and  souls,  men  whom  the 
lusts  of  office  could  not  kill,  men  whom  the  spoils  of  office 
could  not  buy,  men  who  could  stand  and  face  a  dema- 
gogue and  damn  his  treacherous  viUianies  without  winking; 
strong  men  these,  who  lived  above  the  mists,  but  they  were 
very  few.  They  would  vote  right  always,  but  they  didn't 
count  enough ;  there  were  not  enough  of  them.  There  was 
another  class  of  men,  clean  men,  well-shaved  men,  well-con- 
ditioned men,  who  didn't  drink  liquors  and  didn't  go  to  sa- 
loons, and  had  no  sympathy  with  the  drinking  customs  of 
society,  but  somehow  they  didn't  always  vote  right;  they 
seemed  to  want  to  vote  right,  and  when  you  talked  to  them 
you  thought  they  were  going  to,  but  when  the  vote  came  they 
didn't.  You  couldn't  seem  to  blame  them.  They  swayed, 
and  swayed,  and  swayed.  They  illustrated  that  principle 
in  mechanics  which  is  known  as  ^'  the  universal  joint."  Do 
yotiknow  about  it? 

THE  UNIVERSAL  JOINT, 

as  perhaps  you  ladies  do  not  all  know,  is  a  ball  in  a  kind  of 
socket,  and  it  is  set  into  places  in  machinery  where  the  power 
is  needed  to  go  all  S(  rts  of  ways,  and  this  joint  goes  just 
whichever  way  it  is  wanted. 

It  is  a  very  useful  thing  in  great  machinery ;  it  prevents 
friction,  and  it  goes  so  or  so,  or  thus  and  thus,  or  any  way. 
Touch  it  on  one  side  and  it  goes  right  over  on  to  the  other 
side.    And  it  is  just  so  with  some  of  these  men.    They  seem 


84  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

to  have  somewhere  at  the  base  of  the  spine  a  universal  joint, 
and  whenever  a  httle  pressure  is  brought  to  bear — remember 
I  am  talking  about  the  Iowa  Legislature — on  one  side,  they 
go  over  to  the  other  side.  Now,  it  is  not  the  fault  of  those 
men  j  they  cannot  help  it ;  it  is  the  way  they  are  put  up, 
but  it  is  very  unfortunate  if  your  cause  is  in  the  hands  of 
such  men.  You  never  know  where  they  will  be  when  the 
vote  comes  around.  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  such 
men  ?  Why,  just  prop  them  up,  that  is  all.  If  you  can  set 
around  these  men  something  against  which  they  can  lean,  so 
they  will  be  solid  long  enough  to  vote,  why,  you  are  all  right. 
They  won't  resist;  they  will  stand  there  if  they  are  only  set 
You  know,  ladies,  how  it  is  with  the  toys  we  buy  for  our  chil- 
dren—those Noah's  arks,  full  of  all  kinds  of  animals,  sheep, 
cows,  and  dogs- -they  don't  stand  up  well ;  but  if  you  ]3an 
them  against  something  they  make  very  good  sheep,  and 
cows,  and  dogs  indeed.  It  is  the  same  with  these  gentle- 
men I  have  spoken  of.  What  shall  they  lean  against  ?  Con- 
stitutional law,  which  is  the  will  of  the  people. 

What  do  they  say  when  you  ask  them  to  vote  upon  a  stat- 
ute permitting  the  people  to  vote  an  amendment  ?  '^  Oh  !  of 
course,  of  course  we  are  perfectly  willing  to  let  the  people 
vote."  And  if  you  have  constitutional  law  and  want  statute 
law  to  enforce  it,  then  they  say,  ''Why,  we  must,  we  must, 
because  there  is  the  constitution,  and  that  is  what  the  peo- 
ple have  said  must  be  done.  We  are  sworn  to  support  the 
constitution."  So  I  say  the  objection  is  not  well  taken  that 
you  can  get  a  bill  through  the  Legislature  for  prohibition  just 
as  easily  as  you  can  get  an  enforcing  statute  after  you  have 
got  your  constitutional  provision. 

Another  great  argument  for  constitutional  prohibition  is 
this,  that  it  remedies  the  evil  of 

THE  GOVEEXMEXT   OF  GEEAT   CITIES. 

And  now  I  approach  a  problem  that  has  been  so  grandly 
set  forth  upon  the  platform  of  Tremont  Temple  that  I  speak 
with  timidity.  I  remember,  in  my  home  in  the  West,  read- 
ing the  utterances  of  that  great  man.  Oh  !  what  shall  I 
say  of  him — of  Joseph  Cook  ?    I  remember  that  here  he  has 


Rephj  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster .  85 

stood  and  talked  to  Boston  audiences,  and  we  have  got  it 
out  there  through  those  blessings,  the  newspapers;  and  I  re- 
call that  he  said  on  one  occasion,  ^'  The  tendency  of  our  civi- 
lization is  to  mass  in  great  cities,"  and  that  whereas  fifty 
years  ago,  or  thereabouts,  one  twenty-fifth  of  the  population 
of  this  land  was  in  great  cities,  now  one-fifth  of  it  is  in  great 
cities.  Do  you  not  see  the  tendency  to  mass  in  the  cities? 
What  makes  the  vote  of  the  cities?  The  criminal  classes. 
What  makes  the  criminal  classes?  The  grog-shop.  And 
thus  to-day  this  land  of  ours  is  under  the  dominion  of  the 
grog-shop. 

IS    THAT  XOT  TRUE  ? 

Is  there  a  flaw  in  my  line  of  argument  ?  Do  I  over- 
state ?  I  wish  I  did.  I  wish  it  were  not  so,  but  so  it  is. 
How  shall  legislation  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  city  of 
Boston  and  upon  the  city  of  New  York  ?  Only  by  bringing 
into  it  the  cool,  calm  vote  of  the  rural  districts.  If  every 
man  at  his  shop  and  his  farm  can  vote  directly  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  license  or  no-license,  dram-shop  or  no  dram-shop, 
don't  you  see  that  we  put  into  legislation  a  pure,  clean 
stream  ? 

Another  thing — and  I  know  before  me  are  large  numbers 
of  Christian  ministers,  and  to  you,  gentlemen,  I  appeal  to- 
day— the  foundations  of  all  good  government  are  in  this 
book,  the  Bible.  You  know  it.  It  is  acknowledged  in  the 
commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  more  strongly  than  in  our 
wilder,  newer  West,  and  you  men  of  God  sit  in  your  studies 
and  stand  up  in  your  pulpits  before  your  congregations,  and 
your  spirits  groan  within  you  because  of  the  iniquities  that 
stalk  abroad  in  this  land  ;  but  how  can  you  touch  these  ini- 
quities? You  preach ;  but  when  you  ask,  ^'  Shall  I  go  down 
into  the  dirty  poo's  of  political  life?"  you  hesitate,  and  you 
say,  "  Perhaps  I  had  better,  and  perhaps  I  had  better  not," 
and  so  the  question  weighs  on  your  mind  and  you  hardly 
know  what  to  do.  I  remember  how  the  evil  of  slavery 
burned  into  the  soul  of  my  grand  old  father.  I  can  remem- 
ber how,  right  here  in  Massachusetts,  he  used  to  walk  back 
and  forth  in  his  study  and  groan  out,  ''Oh!  slavery! 
slavery !  slavery  ! "  and  always  at  family  prayers  when  he 
prayed  for  us  he  prayed  for  the  slave.    Yes,  and  I  remem- 


86  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence, 

ber,  too,  how,  before  the  bar  of  the  General  Conference  of 
the  church  of  which  he  was  a  member,  he  was  reproved 
because  he  dared  to  pray  that  the  Lord  might  not  descend 
in  wrath  upon  a  slave-holding  church. 

Ministers  of  the  cross  of  Jesus,  you  won't  have  to  go  into 
partisan  poUtics  to  secure  constitutional  prohibition,  and 
the  influence  of  the  church  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
constitutional  law  as  it  cannot  upon  State  statutes.  Dear 
friends,  the  prophet  says  :  '^  The  government  shall  be  upon 
his  shoulders."  It  will  never  be  upon  his  shoulders  save  as 
the  principles  of  Christ's  Gospel  are  brought  into  Christian 
legislation,  and  the  church  of  Christ  must  carry  it  there. 
Might  I  interpolate  a  question  here  and  ask,  '^  Who  com- 
pose the  majority  of  the  Christian  Church?"  When  the 
women  of  the  Christian  Church  shall  impress  their  thought 
upon  the  law,  then  this  traffic  will  go.  And  I  say  to  you 
Christian  men,  to  you  legislators,  to  you  all,  in  the  language 
of  yesterday's  Sunday-school  lesson,  "Prepare  ye  the  way 
of  the  Lord,  make  his  paths  straight."  Constitutional  law 
remedies  the  evils  of  great  cities,  and  we  ask,  therefore, 
as  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  for  constitu- 
tional prohibition. 

Dear  friends,  I  had  intended  at  this  place  and  time  to 
make  an  appeal  for  the  work  of  the  Woman's  Christian 
Temperance  Union,  because  the  honorable  gentleman,  Dr. 
Crosby,  has  said  that  the  measures  adopted  by  temperance 
advocates  are  very  objectionable.  I  did  not  thiok  it  was 
necessary  to  defend  the  methods  used  by  those  grand  old 
men  of  the  church,  but  I  did  intend  to  say  a  few  things 
for  our  woman's  methods  of  work.  But  the  honorable  gen- 
tleman who  presided  here  has  so  beautifully  set  forth  our 
work  and  pleaded  for  it  so  grandly  that  why  need  I  say  a 
word  ?  And  the  President  of  our  National  Association  has 
embodied  it  all  in  her  own  sweet  self  and  in  her  eloquent 
words,  so  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  say  a  word. 
Dear  friends,  I  pause  here.  The  methods  adopted  by  Christian 
women  have  been  the  result  of  their  best  thought;  they 
stand  for  total  abstinence,  for  prohibition,  for  constitutional 
prohibition,  and  for  organized  Christian  temperance  efiforts 
to  set  forth  all  this. 


Reply  of  Mrs.  J.  E.  Foster.  87 

IN  THE   SANDS  OF  EGYPT, 

by  the  shores  of  the  Nile,  there  stands  the  great  pyramid  ; 
for  twenty  centuries  it  has  stood  and  looked  unwinliing  at 
the  sun  ;  it  covers  thirteen  acres  of  solid  masonry ;  it  mounts 
up  and  up  as  if  it  would  pierce  the  skies;  it  has  been  the 
wonder  of  the  centuries,  and  in  its  proportions,  its  angles, 
its  measurements,  are  bid  great  truths  of  physical  science — 
geometrical,  astronomical,  mathematical,  geodetical.  Dis- 
coverers and  scholars  walk  about  its  base  and  look  up  at 
itsnuge  sides,  and  say,  ''We  wonder  who  built  the  pyra- 
mid ?  "  For,  though  much  surmise  as  to  its  origin  and  in- 
t«>nded  use  has  been  indulged  in,  history  does  not  tell  us. 
Of  late  certaiu  Christian  scholars,  in  their  studies  of  this 
great  wonder  of  the  world,  have  thought  they  discovered 
not  only  physical  truth  set  forth  in  base  and  capstone,  in 
measurement  and  line,  but  that  Scripture  truth  is  suggested 
also ;  that  in  its  openings,  its  passages,  its  chambers,  in  the 
finishing  of  the  stones  which  pave  the  floors,  and  line  the  sides, 
and  are  in  the  ceilings,  in  the  number  and  size  of  these,  in 
their  sotting  here  and  position  there,  is  written  dimly  some- 
times, but  still  discernible  to  the  careful  student,  the  history 
of  God's  past  and  present,  and  his  future  dealings  with  the 
human  race  ;  that  it  is  to  physical  truth  what  the  Bible  is 
to  spiritual — a  revelaticm ;  is  the  ''altar  unto  the  Lord  in 
the  midst  of  Egypt."  Wonderful  is  the  suggestion  and  bold 
the  faith  that  grasps  and  holds  its  lessons. 

Dear  friends,  there  is  being  built  on  these  Western  shores 
a  great  pyramid,  an  altar  unto  the  Lord  ;  its  foundations 
were  laid  by  the  church  of  God ;  its  sockets  were  set  by  men 
brave,  and  true,  and  strong;  its  base  is  the  square  of  the 
circle  of  all  the  influences  that  cluster  about  our  homes, 
about  our  national  life.  With  great  labor  was  the  rubbish 
cleared  away  to  give  it  room,  and  carefully  were  the  first 
stones  put  in  their  places.    Slowly  has  the  pyramid  arisen. 

DO  YOU  SEE  THE  BUILDEKS  ? 

There  comes  the  Wasbingtonian  throng  with  pledge,  and 
song,  and  great  huge  stones,  the  Rechabites,  the  Sons  of 
Temperance,  the  Good  Templars,  the  Temple  of  Honor, 
and  many  men  and  women  who  carry  no  flag  and  walk 


88  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abdmence. 

under  no  bauner,  but  carry  stone  and  mortar,  square  and 
chisel,  a  d  help  to  build.    Then  comes  a  band  of  little  chil- 
dren, with  banners  and  rausic  ;  they  sing, 
"  I'm  glad  I'm  in  the  army, 
I'm  glad  I'm  in  this  army," 

and  they  help  to  build.  Then  comes  a  band  of  reformed 
men,  with  ribbons  of  red  and  of  blue,  clothed  and  in  their 
right  minds.    They  march  solidly  up,  and 

"  Plold  the  fort,  for  I  am  coming," 
rings  out  full  and  strong,  and  they  help  to  build. 

And,  last  of  those  I  see,  then  comes  a  band  of  praying 
women.  They  walk  very  slow,  for  in  their  compai.y  are 
wounded  ones,  mothers  bereft  and  wives  heart-sick;  but 
calm  and  strong  I  hear  the  tones, 

"  My  faith  looks  up  to  thee, 
Thou  Lamb  of  Calvary." 

And  thus  they  build!  And  the  stones  these  multitudes 
have  brought  have  been  kept  in  i)lace  and  squared  into  line 
by  righteous  law.  And  so  this  pyramid  is  being  built,  and 
by  and  by  it  shall  be  finished,  and  with  singing  a:^d  shout- 
ing the  capstone  shall  be  put  in  place,  its  crown  and  glory, 
its  bond  of  perfectness.  What  shall  the  capstone  be  ? 
JSlatlonal  constitutional prohihition  !  And  then  the  pyramid 
shall  stand,  and,  though  the  waves  beat  upon  it,  it  shall  rot 
fall,  for  'tis  founded  on  the  rock  of  God's  eternal  truth.  And 
in  the  far-off  years,  when  all  these  builders  shall  have  passed 
away,  a  grander  civilization  shall  surge  about  the  base  of 
this  great  pyramid — grander  because  they  shall  be  children 
born  of  men  and  women  that  did  not  drink — abd,  looking  at 
its  rugged  sides  and  gazing  at  its  perfect  crown,  shall  cry, 
^^  Who  built  the  pyramid  ?  who  built  the  pyramid  ?  "  Then 
you  and  I,  perhaps,  shall  look  over  the  battlements  of  hea- 
ven and  see  the  very  stone  we  set  in  place,  and  the  shouts 
of  glory  will  be  louder,  the  halleluiahs  longer,  ay,  the  rest 
sweeter,  because  we  helped  to  build. 

At  the  close  of  the  lecture  many  of  the  audience  crowded 
on  to  the  platform  to  shake  Mrs.  Foster  by  the  hand  and 
congratulate  her  upon  her  brilhant  effort. 


JOSEPH  COOK'S 

PULPIT  AND  TEMPERANCE. 


By  THEODOEE  L.  CUYLER,  D.D. 


[From  the  Independent :\ 


JOSEPH  COOK  has  built  a  Monday  morning  pulpit  in 
Boston,  whicb  is  visible  over  the  whole  continent  and 
across  the  sea.  In  that  pulpit  he  has  struck  some 
sturdy  and  unanswerable  blows  in  favor  of  prohibitory  legis- 
lation against  tippliug-houses  and  in  favor  of  the  principles 
and.  practice  of  total  abstinence  from  all  intoxicants.  Dur- 
ing his  absence  in  Europe  his  lecture  committee  have  ad- 
mitted to  his  pulpit  my  genial  and  eloquent  friend,  Chan- 
cellor Crosby,  who  has  opened  his  broadsides  against  nearly 
every  position  whicb  Mr.  Cook  has  taken  upon  the  subject 
of  temperance.  If  that  pulpit  is  to  become,  like  certain 
clubs  in  Boston,  the  theatre  of  ''free  discussion,"  then  I 
submit  that  they  might  as  well  invite  Prof.  Huxley  to  assail 
Mr.  Cook's  positions  on  evolution,  or  Col.  IngersoU  to  assail 
his  views  on  tbe  inspiration  of  the  Word  and  the  doctrine  of 
atonement. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  about  Dr.  Crosby's 
discourse  is  iis  title.  He  calls  it  a ''  Calm  View  of  the  Tem- 
perance Question,"  and  then  dashes  Into  a  heated  tirade 
against  the  ''  wild  radicalism  of  teetotalers,"  whom  he  de- 
nounces as  fanatics,  as  unmanly,  as  twisters  of  Scripture,  as 
radical  agitators,  and  as  infatuated  defenders  of  a  system 
that  is  utterly  impracticable  and  is  ''  increasing  the  drunk- 
enness in  the  land" !  If  my  friend  utters  all  this  when  he  is 
calm,  what  might  we  expect  from  him  if  he  were  excited  ? 


90  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

When  I  reached  the  folio  wing  sentence  in  his  discourse  I 
was  inclined  to  name  it  a  ''  comical  view  of  temperance,"  for 
I  could  not  refrain  from  the  Christian  liberty  of  a  hearty 
laugh.  He  asserts  that  the  total- abstinence  system  is  con- 
trary to  revealed  rehgion  and  harmful  to  the  interests  of  the 
country,  and  exclaims : 

"  I  charge  upon  this  system  the  growth  of  drunkenness  in  our 
land  and  the  general  demoralization  among  religious  communi- 
ties; and  I  call  upon  all  sound-minded  thinking  men  to  stop  the 
enormities  of  this  false  system." 

As  soon  as  I  could  take  breath  after  this  phihppic,  I 
began  to  recall  some  of  the  names  of  the  most  conspicuous 
advocates  of  the  total-abstinence  movement,  and  iu  the 
front  rank  I  find  Albert  Barnes,  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  Lyman 
Beecher,  Bishop  Alonzo  Potter,  aud  Theodore  Frelinghuy- 
sen,  among  the  dead ;  aud  Joseph  Cook,  Charles  H.  Spur- 
geon,  Dr.  Richardson,  Canon  Farrar,  Bishop  Lightfoot,  and 
Bishop  Ellicott,  among  its  living  defenders.  These  great 
and  good  men  do  not  endorse  all  the  weak  and  extravagant 
utterances  of  certain  zealots  -,  but  they  do  maintain  and 
practise  the  '^system"  which  Dr.  Crosby  so  bitterly  de- 
nounces. Weak  enthusiasts  often  utter  crude  arguments  in 
favor  of  the  Gospel  system  j  but  Dr.  Crosby  none  the  less 
holds  to  and  preaches  faifh fully  that  very  system.  We  total- 
abstainers  are  ready  to  stand  by  the  solid  principle's  which 
such  great  and  godly  leaders  as  I  have  just  named  are  de- 
fending. They  constitute  our  system  of  doctrine  and  prac- 
tice; but  we  are  not  responsible  for  every  foolish  speech  of 
every  foolish  fellow  who  sets  up  for  a  ^^  temperance  lec- 
turer." 

The  chancellor's  foremost  argument  against  our  total-ab- 
stinence movement  is  that  it  has  proved  impracticable  and  is 
a  failure.  If  he  will  allow  me  to  use  his  own  frankness,  I  will 
say  that  he  is  the  very  last  man  who  ought  to  utter  that  taunt. 
The  whole  nation  knows  that  for  several  years  he  has  intre- 
pidly led  a  movement  in  the  city  of  New  York  to  enforce  a 
weak  excise  law  which  is  hopelessly  vitiated  by  a  clause  that 
permits  endless  dram-selling  under  the  name  of  hotel-keep- 


Joseph  Cook's  Pulpif  and  Temperance.  91 

ing.  So  strong  was  Dr.  Crosby's  faith  iu  this  rickety  law  that 
he  once  rashly  affirmed  that  under  it  he  would  clear  New 
York  of  grog-shops  in  six  months !  We  older  workers  in  the 
reform,  while  we  honored  his  zeal  and  courage,  felt  assured 
of  his  inevitable  failure  ;  not  from  his  fault,  but  the  fault  of 
his  '^  system."  During  the  very  time  that  his  society  were 
doing  their  utmost  I  looked  into  the  doorway  of  a  full-rig- 
ged dram-shop  which  was  driving  its  accursed  traffic  within 
a  stone's  throw  of  Dr.  Crosby's  residence.  That  death-deal- 
ing establishment  (the  nursery  of  '' moderate  drinkers") 
and  its  six  or  seven  thousand  partners  were  no  more  af- 
fected by  Dr.  Crosb}'s  well-meant  efiforts  than  the  abut- 
ments of  the  East  River  Bridge  would  be  by  the  stroke  of  a 
mallet.  We  teetotalers  do  know,  from  sohd  statistics,  that 
hundreds  of  thousands  have  been  reached,  and  benefited, 
and  protected,  and  blessed  by  the  total- abstinence  pledge. 
I  can  testify  to  the  immense  service  which  it  rendered  to 
me  and  to  others  when  I  was  a  student  in  college.  An  in- 
calculable good  has  been  wrought  by  our  ''system  "  and  our 
''propaganda"  ;  and,  in  view  of  his  own  honest  efforts  in 
New  York  City,  it  would  be  well  for  Chancellor  Crosby  to 
be  modest  in  inviting  comparison  as  to  '•  systems." 

On  the  scientific  question  the  chancellor  takes  sides  very 
positively  with  Dr.  Anstie,  who  claims  that  alcohol  is  not  a 
poison,  but  a  true  food  to  the  bodily  man.  He  denounces 
us  total -abstainers  as  guilty  of  ''a  moral  error"  because  we 
prefer  to  hold  the  opposite  opinion,  which  is  defended  by 
such  eminent  physicists  as  Lallemand,  Dr.  B.  W.  Richard- 
son, and  Sir  Henry  Thompson.  In  dealing  with  the  drink- 
ing usages  of  society  we  know  that  in  their  actual  effects 
alcohohc  drinks  poison  millions  by  striking  right  to  the 
brain,  and  practically  they  feed  nobody.  This  inevitable 
and  invariable  tendency  of  alcoholic  stimulants  to  strike  to 
the  human  brain  is  the  most  overwhelming  argument  in  fa- 
vor 01  the  wisdom  and  safety  of  total  abstinence.  Dr.  Cros- 
by has  very  prudently  fought  shy  of  it. 

He  pronounces  the  total-abstinence  pledge  a  "  strait- 
jacket"  and  a  pernicious  instrument  for  debauching  the 
conscience ;  but  in  another  part  of  his  discourse  he  distinct- 


92  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abdineiice, 

ly  says :  ''  I  do  not  oppose  the  principle  of  total  abstinence 
for  the  individual.  It  is  every  man's  duty  to  abstain  if  his 
own  conscience  commaud  it."  Now,  if  my  conscience  com- 
mands me  to  let  intoxicants  alone,  then,  in  the  name  of 
common  sense,  where  is  the  harm  of  my  recording  my  con- 
scientious purpose  on  a  pledge  I  And  if  we  teetotalers,  by 
our  '^  propaganda,"  can  so  enlighten^-  the  consciences  of 
young  men  that  they  shall  agree  to  let  alcoholics  alone, 
where  is  the  harm  of  their  banding  together  into  a  tempe- 
rance society  with  its  wholesome  pledge  ?  Does  Dr.  Crosby 
consider  a  pledge  in  wedlock  to  "  love  each  other,"  or  a 
pledge  of  fidelity  to  Christ  in  church-membership,  a 
"strait-jacket"?  Yet  in  both  these  cases  conscience,  as 
well  as  judgment,  leads  to  the  employment  of  a  binding  in- 
strument. The  fact  is  that  Dr.  Crosby  yields  about  all  that 
the  most  thoughtful  and  wise  abstainers  claim  in  this  last- 
quoted  passage.  He  admits  that  total  abstinence  is  a  good 
thing  for  the  individual,  and  so  well  do  I  know  him  that  I 
am  sure  he  would  rejoice  to  see  everybody  avoiding  intoxi- 
cants. Now,  all  that  we  members  of  the  temperance  ''  pro- 
paganda" are  aiming  at  is  to  persuade  everybody  to  do  just 
this  very  good  thing. 

Probably  we  shall  have  harder  work  to  persuade  some 
people  to  adopt  this  wise  course  after  they  have  read  some 
of  the  extraordinary  declarations  in  Dr.  Crosby's  Boston 
discourse.  One  of  these  declarations  is  that  it  is  ^-atro- 
cious dogma  to  assume  that  moderate  drinking  leads  to 
drunkenness."  I  do  not  know  of  a  more  dangerous  bait 
that  could  be  nailed  up  over  the  bar  of  a  fashionable  saloon 
than  this  most  ill-considered  sentence.  No  sane  man  ever 
asserted  that  every  moderate  drinker  becomes  a  di'unkard; 
but  just  as  long  as  '^  wine  is  a  mocker,"  and  just  as  long  as 
moderate  drinking  is  the  door  of  entrance  to  all  the  drunk- 
enness that  has  peopled  hell,  just  so  long  will  we  teetotal- 
ers stand  outside  ot  that  door,  and,  in  the  name  of  brother- 
ly love,  will  warn  every  man,  woman,  and  child  against  en- 
tering it. 

The  space  accorded  to  a  brief  article  forbids  even  a  refer- 
ence to  many  of  the  remarkable  declarations  in  this  frank. 


I 


Joscjjli  Coolvs  Pulpit  and  Temperance.  93 

bold  discourse.  Some  of  tliem  are  remarkably  pithy  and 
sensible,  and  we  '^  fanatics  "  may  profit  by  them.  Some  of 
them  will  aff(U'd  quite  too  ready  and  convenient  pleas  for 
tampering  with  the  bottle  and  for  jeering  at  that  reform 
which  God  has  so  signally  blessed.  I  leave  Brother  Crosby 
to  the  owner  of  that  lofty  Boston  pulpit.  The  eccentric 
John  Randolph  was  accustomed  to  ride  on  horseback  to  the 
Capitol ;  and,  on  reaching  his  desk  in  the  House,  he  often 
swept  his  rawhide  riding- whip  across  the  desk,  and  sent  all 
the  bills  which  the  page  had  laid  there  flying  over  the  floor. 
When  Joseph  Cook  returns  from  Europe  he  may  find  some 
singular  documents  lying  on  his  pulpit ;  and  if  he  uses  the 
rawhide  of  bis  logic  on  this  ''  View  of  the  Temperance 
Question,"  perhaps  it  will  not  continue  to  feel  so  '^  calm." 


RELATIONS 


B 


By  EZRA  M.  HUNT,  M.D. 


[From  the  Independent.'] 


THE  remarkable  temperance  lecture  of  Rev.  Dr.  Crosby 
at  Boston  has  such  an  admixture  of  grand  truths  and 
pernicious  errors,  and  such  protests  against  methods 
which  do  and  which  do  not  deserve  to  be  protested  against^ 
that  it  is  not  wonderful  that  the  medical  and  sanitaiy  vievv 
of  the  question  is  also  given  ex-cathedra.  Under  the  divi- 
sion of  moral  questions  the  first  four,  at  least,  come  withiu 
the  range  of  the  physician  and  the  sanitarian.  The  first 
conceals  a  real  issue  under  a  form  of  pert  statement :  ^'  The 
first  moral  error  of  the  total-abstinence  system  is  in  turning 
a  medicinal  prescription  (proscription  f)  into  a  bill  of  fare 
for  all  mankind."  This  boldly  assumes  the  only  reason  the 
teetotaler  has  for  avoiding  the  use  of  alcohol  to  be  that  it 
causes  drunkenness.  This  is  a  moral  and  social  reason ;  but 
we  know  of  no  teetotaler  who  separates  that  view  from  an- 
other. The  teetotaler  believes,  on  what  seems  to  him,  and 
has  seemed  to  multitudes  of  leaders  in  human  knowledge 
and  in  physical  investigation,  good  and  sufficient  evidence, 
that  the  use  of  alcohol  in  those  quantities  in  which  it  is  af- 
forded even  by  wine  and  fermented  liquors  is  injurious  to 
health.  He  leaves  it  out  of  the  bill  of  fare  of  all  mankind 
for  the  same  reason  that  he  would  leave  opium  out ;  not 
merely  because  the  ojjium-eater  may  abuse  it,  but  because 

94 


I^elations  of  Distilled  and  Fermented  Liquors.     95 

it  is  Dot  needed  at  all.,  except  as  a  medical  prescription. 
The  abstainer  does  not  ask  you  to  put  a  man  on  a  sick- 
regimen — i.e.,  abstinence  according  to  Dr.  C— to  keep 
bim  from  becoming  sick,  but  to  keep  him  from  a  sick-regi- 
men when  well.  The  comparison  of  the  imprisonment  of 
the  thief  is,  therefore,  the  thing  which  is  '^  wholly  uncon- 
nected." The  very  thing  which  the  lecturer  himself  does 
is  to  turn  a  medical  prescription  into  a  bill  of  fare  for  gen- 
eral use,  only  the  alcohol  must  be  put  up  by  a  beer  formula. 

"  The  second  moral  error  found  is  the  assumption  that 
moderate  drinking  leads  to  drunkenness."  Strange  that 
this  should  be  called  an  atrocious  dogma !  Strange  that  be- 
cause multitudes  who  drink  moderately  do  not  fall  into 
drunkenness  it  should  be  taken  as  axiomatic  that  moderate 
drinking  has  no  tendency  to  cause  excessive  drinking  !  In 
this  respect  alcohol  has  the  law  of  all  of  its  class  of  medi- 
cines, and  of  many  more  decided  narcotics.  There  are 
thousands  of  wills  strong  enough  to  resist  it ;  but  these  are 
not  generally  those  wno  "live  on  the  confines  of  health, 
whose  digestion  is  feeble,  circulation  languid,  and  nervous 
system  too  excitable."  The  fact  that  thousands  of  such  and 
of  others  from  being  moderate  drinkers  have  come  to  over- 
indulgence does  show  that  moderate  drinking  has  some  ten- 
dency to  cause  drunkenness.  Thousands  of  people  have 
taken  opium  drops  or  pills,  and  not  become  opium  ine- 
briates ;  but  the  fact  still  remains  that  the  moderate  daily 
use  of  opium  does  tend  to  opium  excess.  Multitudes  of 
those  who  have  not  lost  their  self-control,  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  those  who  have,  can  testify  that  the  tendency  of 
this  article,  alcohol,  is  to  create  a  taste  and  desire.  It  is  a 
medical  fact  true  of  this  and  many  other  medicinal  articles. 
To  deny  it  is  not  merely  disputing  total-abstinence  testi- 
mony, but  denying  a  law  of  acquired  taste  and  attachment 
that  prevails  as  to  alcohol,  opiam,  chloral,  tobacco,  and 
some  other  articles. 

The  third  moral  error  specified  also  has  to  do  with  a 
medical  and  sanitary  question.  The  blunder  of  the  total- 
abstainer  is  said  to  be  that  he  does  not  discriminate  between 
things  that  differ.    The  illustration  is  that  distilled  and  fer- 


96  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

merited  liquors  dififer.  The  answer  is  tliat  the  total-ab- 
stainer does  discriminate  between  distilled  and  fermented 
liquors  as  to  degree ;  but  does  not,  because  of  the  presence 
of  alcohol  in  both,  make  a  discrimination  which  ignores  the 
leading  and  damaging  similarity.  He  knows  that  six  per 
cent,  is  not  thirty  per  cent. ;  but  it  is  the  alcohol  that  gives 
type  to  each  and  that  allies  them  too  closely  to  enable  us  to 
call  this  want  of  discrimination  ''  a  blunder  that  has  the  pro- 
portions of  a  crime.''  The  clincher  given  to  prove  the  differ- 
ence is  from  Dr.  Parkes  ;  but  Dr.  Parkes  is  imperfectly 
quoted.  He  first  asks  the  question  :  "If  distinctly  hurtful 
in  large  quantities,  is  it  not  so  in  these  smaller  amounts '! " 
He  then  says  :  ''As  a  scientific  question,  I  do  not  see  how 
an  answer  can  be  at  present  given."  He  then  says :  "  Fail- 
ing, as  it  appears  to  me,  in  accurate  information  on  this 
point,  the  usual  arguments  for  and  against  the  use  of  alco- 
hol cannot  be  held  to  settle  the  point,'"  which  he  says  are 
(a)  {h)  (c),  etc.  Under  c  he  has  the  sentence  quoted  by  Dr. 
Crosby,  which  even  in  this  form,  as  not  his  own,  he  guards 
by  adding:  "It  must  be  allowed,  I  tbink,  there  are  some 
persons  of  this  class  who  are  benefited  by  alcohol  in  small 
quantities,  and  chiefly  in  the  form  of  beer  or  light  wine. 
Unless  these  persons  wilfully  deceive  themselves,  they  feel 
better  and  are  better  with  a  little  alcohol."  Noie,  also, 
that  Dr.  Parkes  is  e\idently  one  of  those  guilty  of  the  moral 
outrage  of  indiscrimination.  Had  Dr.  Parkes  been  read  as 
to  other  utterances,  and  in  his  reply  to  Anstie  as  to  food 
value,  etc.,  he  would  never  have  been  thus  quoted.  Sir 
Henry  Thompson  recently,  in  his  letter  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  as  quoted  by  Judge  Pitman  <p.  38),  says : 
"  The  habitual  use  of  fermented  liquors  to  an  extent  far 
short  of  what  is  necessary  to  produce  that  condition  (drunk- 
enness), and  such  as  is  quite  common  in  all  ranks  of  society, 
injures  the  body  and  diminishes  the  mental  power  to  an 
extent  which  I  think  few  people  are  aware  of."  He,  too,  in 
the  same  paragraph,  forgets  to  "  discriminate,"  and  calls 
them  alcoholic  beverages.  He,  like  Parkes,  Is  also  not  a 
pledge  man  or  a  pleader  for  a  total-abstinence  general  law. 
The  fourth  moral  error  alleged  by  Dr.  Crosby  also  touches 


Relations  of  Distilled  and  Fermented  Liquors.      97 

medical  and  sanitary  questions.  This  error,  he  says,  is  in 
classing  alcohol  as  a  poison,  and  not  a  food.  Dr.  Anstie  is 
quoted  as  having  ^^  clearly  shown"  this  ;  but  Dr.  Parkes's 
reply  is  not  quoted.  "  Even  if  complete  destruction  within 
certain  limits  were  quite  clear,  this  fact  alone  would  not 
guide  us  to  the  dietetic  use  of  alcohol.  We  have  first  to 
trace  the  effect  of  the  destruction  and  learn  whether  it  is  for 
good  or  evil.  Few  seem  to  think  that  the  destruction  must 
give  rise  to  useful  force ;  but  I  cannot  see  that  this  is  neces- 
sarily so."  It  will  be  noticed,  too,  that  this  reply  meets  the 
experiments  of  Binz,  which  have  been  the  chief  physiologi- 
cal staple  of  the  food  argument  for  alcohol  for  some  time 
past.  Outside  of  experiment,  Anstie  sought  to  prove  the 
food  value  of  tobacco  and  opium,  just  as  he  did  that  of  alco- 
hol. Dr.  Crosby  concludes  that  wines  and  beers  have  but 
three  to  ten  per  cent,  of  alcohol  in  the  form  best  adapted 
for  beneficial  effect.  So  far  as  our  chemistry  tells  us,  the 
form  of  the  alcohol  is  just  the  same,  only  the  flavoring  and 
the  addition  of  actual  food  is  different.  We  do  not  recog- 
nize this  as  the  '^  alembic  in  which  nature  has  turned  a 
powerful  and  dangerous  element  into  a  beneficial  minister." 
It  is  because  the  use  of  fermented  as  well  as  distilled  li- 
quors is  in  the  direction  of  injury  to  the  public  health  that 
we  have  felt  constrained  to  enter  a  brief  and  humble  excep- 
tion to  the  physical  part  of  this  address. 


AN  OPEN  LETTER, 


By  Rev.  Dr.  A.  J.   GORDON. 


EEV,  DR.  A.  J.  GORDON,  pastor  of  the  Clarendon  Street 
Baptist  Church,  as  Chairman  of  the  Boston  Mon- 
day Lecture  Committee,  wrote  the  following  letter 
to  the  Boston  Traveller : 

"As  considerable  comment  has  been  passed  on  the  recent 
Monday  lecture  of  Dr.  Howard  Crosby,  it  may  not  be  improper 
that,  as  chairman  of  the  committee  having  charge  of  these  lec- 
tures, I  should  make  the  following  statement  : 

"  These  lectures  were  designed  to  be  religio-scientific.  Emi- 
nent men  among  college  presidents  and  theological  professors  were 
invited  to  participate  in  them.  As  Chancellor  of  the  University 
of  New  York,  Dr.  Crosby  was  engaged  as  one  of  the  speakers. 
So  far  as  I  am  aware  of,  it  was  expected  when  he  was  asked  to 
lecture  that  he  would  appear  in  some  subject  of  a  scientific  or 
theological  nature,  in  which  his  scholarship  would  enable  him 
to  shine  so  conspicuously.  That  he  chose  to  come  before  us  in 
the  character  of  a  belated  reformer,  advocating  views  that  belong 
to  the  dark  ages  of  the  temperance  reform,  was  his  own  responsi- 
bility. It  is  certainly  to  be  regretted  that  so  eminent  a  preacher 
and  teacher  should  be  found  giving  utterance  to  opinions  that  were 
calm  only  in  their  cold  and  dogmatic  contempt  of  sentiments  which 
the  great  mass  of  temperance  workers  hold  to  be  absolutely  vital 
to  any  real  success  in  batthng  against  intemperance,  and  healthful 
only  through  the  violent  revolt  which  they  must  awaken  in  the 
minds  of  hundreds  who  will  read  them.  Such  sentiments  will  be 
sure  of  enthusiastic  applause  from  every  bar  and  liquor-saloon  in 
the  city.  They  who  sell  intoxicating  drinks,  from  high  to  low, 
disapprove  of  drunkenness  as  strongly  as  the  eminent  divine, 
holding  equally  with  him  that  moderation  should  be  the  rule.     It  is 


A'ii  Open  Letter.  99 

grateful  to  be  able  to  say,  to  the  credit  of  the  Christian  and  tem- 
perance sentiment  of  our  city,  that  the  views  evidently  met  with 
almost  no  sympathy  from  the  audience  to  which  they  were  ad- 
dressed, so  that  while  the  lecturer  was  pursuing  his  announced 
purpose  of  '  carrying  the  war  into  Africa,'  he  stood  among  his 
hearers  as  '  a  solitary  sentinel  pacing  around  the  deserted  citadel 
of  his  own  opinions.' " 


THE   "CALM    VIEW." 


Comments  of  the  Press. 


THE  following  extracts  are  from  the  editorial  comments 
of  sundry  leading  and  intluential  religious  and  secular 
journals  upon  Dr.  Crosby's  address,  ''A  Calm  View  of 
Temperance." 
Zion's  Herald,  of  Boston,  says  : 

"  Much  wonder  is  expressed  that  Chancellor  Crosby  should 
have  been  invited  to  appear  in  the  Monday  Lectureship  as  the 
opponent  of  the  well-established  views  of  the  great  majority  of 
New  England  Christian  men  and  women  upon  the  temperance 
reform.  The  platform  which  he  was  to  occupy,  it  was  well 
known,  had  already  been  dedicated  by  Joseph  Cook  to  the  most 
advanced  total-abstinence  and  prohibitory  opinions.  Certainly 
there  were  men  on  the  Lecture  Committee  whose  publicly-an- 
nounced sentiments  are  totally  opposed  to  nearly  every  position 
taken  by  Dr.  Crosby.  If  arrangements  had  been  made  for  a 
frank  discussion — for  some  able  champion,  like  Wendell  Phillips, 
or  Neal  Dow,  or  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins,  to  follow  on  the  same  plat- 
form upon  a  succeeding  Monday — no  exception  could  be  taken. 
As  it  is,  just  at  this  moment  when  a  special  effort  has  been  made 
to  unite  the  temperance  forces  upon  the  lowest  possible  moral 
ground  of  total  abstinence,  it  takes  on  almost  the  appearance  of  a 
direct  insult  to  the  sentiment  of  the  community  to  put  forward 
upon  such  a  platform  such  reactionary  views. 

"  The  lecture  was  misnamed.  It  was  not  a  *  calm  view '  of  the 
subject.  The  lecturer,  indeed,  was  perfectly  self-possessed,  as  he 
always  is  ;  his  language,  except  in  a  few  instances,  was  not  vio- 

100 


I 


Comments  of  the  Press,  101 

lent  and  never  vituperative  ;  but  he  was  not  calm.  His  opinions 
were  presented  as  dogmatically,  and  positively,  and  earnestly  as 
the  English  language  admits  of  its  being  done.  He  was  evidently 
very  much  aroused.  The  discourse  was  not  at  all  a  calm  discus- 
sion of  the  question,  but  a  heated  and  special  defence  of  positions 
he  has  taken  against  the  attacks  of  those  differing  from  him  on 
the  temperance  question.  One  of  his  severest  indictments  against 
the  advocates  of  total  abstinence  was  the  bitterness  and  severity 
of  their  invectives  against  those  differing  with  them  in  opinion  ; 
but  nothing  could  exceed  the  contempt  which  the  doctor  ex- 
pressed for  those  who  dare  to  hold  a  different  interpretation  from 
himself  of  certain  passages  of  Scripture — albeit  some  of  them  are 
his  peers  in  Biblical  scholarship — and  views  at  variance  with  his 
own  opinion  of  the  nature  and  effects  of  wine  and  fermented  li- 
quors. This  heat  to  which  he  refers,  and  which  he  exhibits, 
arises  from  a  partially  sanctified  liuman  nature  ;  and  Dr.  Crosby 
certainly  is  one  of  the  legitimate  descendants  of  Adam. 

"  This  leads  us  to  say  that  the  lecturer  was  guilty  of  the  same 
offence  which  he  charges  upon  radical  temperance  men,  in  that 
he  fails  to  show  a  '  discrimination  between  things  that  differ,' 
He  includes  all  the  upholders  of  total  abstinence  in  the  same 
category,  as  seeking  to  '  intimidate '  and  '  bulldoze  '  the  commu- 
nity— both  ministers  and  laymen.  This  (course  of  bulldozing)  he 
declares  to  have  been  the  '  curriculum  '  of  the  radical  school  of 
temperance  reformers  for  the  last  forty  years.  Now,  while  in  the 
ranks  of  noble  temperance  workers  have  been  many  men  of  the 
ancient  prophetic  type,  who  have  used  the  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
tures in  the  spirit  of  the  former  covenant,  and  have  denounced 
'  Meroz  '  for  not  coming  up  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  in  sublime 
and  terrible  sentences,  and  often  with  little  mercy,  the  great 
body  of  leading  reformers  have  been  of  another  class.  Among 
them  are  the  chief  ministers  of  our  churches  ;  some  of  our  high- 
est magistrates  and  legislators  ;  our  most  honored  judges  and  in- 
fluential business  citizens  ;  men  whose  words  have  commanded 
the  respect  of  all  who  have  listened  to  them,  and  whose  tempers 
have  certainly  been  under  as  good  control  as  that  of  their  censor. 
No,  doctor,  that  was  not  a  calm  view  of  temperance  or  of  tempe- 
rance men.  You  were  thinking  of  some  violent  newspaper  cor- 
respondent, or  lively  platform  speaker,  who  has  dared  somewhat 
audaciously  to  question  the  wisdom  and  eflBciency  of  the  positions 
you  have,  doubtless  conscientiously,  taken.  A  whole  denomina- 
tion of  Christians,  nearly  two  millions  strong,  from  bishops  down 


102  Moderation  vs.-  Total  Abstuieuce. 

to  the  humblest  member,  have  for  years  taken  this  radical  posi- 
tion and  upheld  it  in  the  pulpit  and  in  church  discipline  ;  but 
"who  ever  dreamed  of  intimating  that  they  had  sought  to  establish, 
these  views  by  intimidation  and  bulldozing  ?  It  was  not  a  very 
complimentary  intimation  which  the  doctor  made,  that  hundreds  of 
ministers  revolted  from  the  extreme  views  of  radical  temperance 
men,  but  failed  to  take  a  stand  against  them  through  fear  of  the 
unhealthy  public  sentiment  which  demands  their  acceptance  and 
denounces  their  opponents.  We  believe  this  to  be  an  unintended 
but  real  slander  upon  the  moral  courage  and  convictions  of  our 
ministers. 

"The  ridicule  heaped  upon  those  who  hold  that  moderate  drink- 
ing is  the  fruitful  fountain  from  whence  the  flood  of  intempe- 
rance is  fed,  will  not  change  the  fact.  It  is  the  experience  of  the 
whole  temperance  reform.  No  successful  progress  was  made  in 
it  until  total  abstinence  took  the  place  of  a  temperate  use  of  li- 
quors. It  is  the  confession  of  tens  of  thousands  that  the  appetite, 
afterwards  unquenchable,  has  been  fostered  at  first  by  the  occa- 
sional use  of  wines,  and  the  testimony  is  equally  voluminous  and 
unanswerable  in  reference  to  the  use  of  cider  and  other  fermented 
liquors.  No  assertion  or  dogmatism  can  alter  the  character  of 
these  long-observed  and  verified  facts.  And,  what  is  more  serious, 
the  later  study  of  heredity  has  shown  us  the  impressive  truth  that 
the  moderate  use  of  wines  in  parents  often  entails  upon  children 
a  maniacal  appetite  for  stimulants,  which  predestines  them  almost 
hopelessly  to  a  drunkard's  grave. 

"  Dr.  Crosby  was  hardly  ingenuous  in  his  defence,  by  profes- 
sional quotations,  oi  the  wholesomeness  and  food-like  character 
of  small  amounts  of  stimulants,  and  light  ales  and  beer.  There 
was  nothing  offered  in  his  address  to  intimate  the  fact  that  the 
weight  of  opinion,  as  has  been  made  to  appear  in  late  articles  in 
the  Contemporary  Review,  and  in  the  testimony  of  the  highest  pro- 
fessional authority,  is  against  any  such  theory.  The  most  authori- 
tative utterances  of  physicians  of  the  widest  practice  is  just  the 
opposite. 

' '  Has  the  doctor  ever  stopped  to  think  what  it  is  that  has 
aroused  such  a  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  total  abstinence  ? 
Why  are  men  so  earnest  in  their  pleas  for  prohibition  ?  What  in- 
duces men  to  yield  their  own  possible  safe  liberty  of  indulgence  ? 
What  means  this  army  of  mothers  and  sisters  with  their  appeal- 
ing voices  and  ears  ?  Why  is  wine  denounced  and  the  weaker 
drinks  ?    What  makes  men  sometimes  so  frantic  in  their  cries  for 


Commenls  of  the  Prcs>i.  103 

rescue  ?  Why  do  they  in  their  aroused  anxiety  pronounce  curses 
u[)on  apathetic  apologists  ?  Wliat  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  this  ? 
There  must  be  some  terrible  evil,  and  there  is.  All  other  schemes 
to  save  our  families  have  been  tried  for  centuries.  Human  hearts 
hive  been  wrung  to  their  breaking,  age  after  age.  The  unbroken 
march  of  the  awful  army  of  drunkards  to  their  fearful  graves  has 
been  too  frightful  for  human  endurance.  Dr.  Crosby  himself 
well  s:iid,  'Total  abstinence  is  the  effectual  cure  of  intempe- 
rance'; and  it  is  the  only  hope.  The  temperate  use  of  liquors  is 
only  the  constant  nourishment  of  an  appetite  that  at  its  full 
strength  man,  with  all  his  moral  power,  is  not  adequate  to  struggle 
with.  Some  men  escape,  but  thousands  fall.  How  can  any 
Christian  man  plead  for  himself  a  liberty  that  becomes  a  license 
to  rum  his  fellow-men  ?" 

The  Preshifterian  Journal,  of  Philadelphia,  says  : 

"  We  do  not  know  any  Christian  tol:al-abstainer  who  has  used 
towards  opponents  such  uncharitable  language  as  Dr.  Crosby  has 
here  employed. 

"  It  is  also  true  that  he  has  exposed  himself  to  ridicule.  It  pro- 
vokes an  almost  irresistible  smile  to  read  his  declaration  that '  the 
total-abstinence  propaganda  has  been  an  overbearing  and  tyran- 
nical power '  which  has  been  '  bulldozing '  the  church  and  the 
country.     Who  are  this  propaganda  ?  .  .  . 

"General  Assembly  after  General  Assembly  of  our  beloved 
church,  to  which  the  New  York  chancellor  owes  allegiance,  has 
taken  the  total-abstinence  position  which  he  assails.  Have  those 
Assemblies  been  part  of  the  infamous  propaganda?  .  .  . 

'•  Dr.  Crosby's  fundamental  assumption  is  an  error.  He  cannot 
maintain  it.  His  position  will  inevitably  go  down  before  this  re- 
form movement,  which  is  the  movement  of  God  ;  but  in  the  mean- 
time our  New  York  brother  has  ministered  rare  comfort  to  drink- 
eis  and  liquor-producers,  and  that  is  to  be  sorely  regretted." 

The  Boston  Congregationalist  says  : 

•'Chancellor  Crosby's  recent  Monday  lecture  upon  the  tempe- 
rance question  may  be  called  on  the  whole  a  plea  for  moderate 
drinking  as  opposed  to  total  abstinence.   .  .  . 

"  We  lose  nothing  by  giving  up  the  use  as  a  drink  of  any  wines 
that  we  can  get,  or  of  any  of  the  lighter  alcoholic  liquors,  while 
the  injury  that  may  come  to  ourselves  out  of  the  habit  of  using 
them,  or  the  harm  that  our  example  may  do  to  others,  may  be 


104  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstinence. 

very  great.  It  is  raost  wise,  therefore,  and  most  Christian  to  let 
them  alone. 

"  It  is  not  fair  either,  in  reckoning  the  evil  that  comes  from  the 
use  of  strong  drink,  to  make  account  only,  as  Chancellor  Crosby 
appears  to  do,  of  cases  of  utter  and  downright  drunkenness. 
There  is,  indeed,  always  a  certain  danger  that  moderate  drinking 
may  lead  to  such  drunkenness,  and  this  is  well  worth  thinking 
of;  but  there  are  other  serious  dangers  short  of  that,  even  if 
drunkenness  is  not  reached.  There  is  an  impairment  of  clearness 
and  force  of  mind  and  body  that  affects  many  men  who  are  not 
drunkards.  There  is  a  wasting,  too,  of  money,  and  often  of  time, 
and  an  exposure  to  bad  company,  and  a  tendency  in  general  to- 
ward dissipation,  which  belong  with  the  use  of  such  drinks  in 
stages  far  short  of  drunkenness,  and  which  throughout  society  as 
a  whole  may  probably  make  up  the  larger  part  of  the  mischief 
wrought  by  intoxicating  drinks.  These  thmgs,  over  and  above 
the  liability  to  absolute  drunkenness,  are  to  be  taken  account 
of. 

"  There  is  nothing  of  argument  either  in  the  saying  that  a  man 
may  more  suitably  exercise  self-control  at  some  point  along  the 
line  of  moderate  drinking  than  at  the  point  of  total  abstinence, 
and  when  he  has  not  entered  on  the  line  of  drinking  at  all.  It 
may  be  easier,  and  it  is  easier,  to  stop  before  one  has  begun;  and 
there  is  no  virtue  in  beginning  for  the  sake  of  trying  to  stop  at 
some  harder  place.  The  ease  of  total,  abstinence  is  part  of  what 
makes  it  best. 

"Try  this  thing  apart  from  yourself,  and  in  your  thought  of 
your  own  son  or  daughtei',  and  see  if  you  would  not  feel  the  most 
of  security  as  to  their  future  if  you  knew  they  never  would  use 
any  of  these  drinks  at  all.  If  that  be  true  it  covers  the  whole 
case,  and  it  makes  it  wise  and  right  for  you,  too,  never  to  use  them 
yourself. " 

The  Herald  and  Presbyter,  of  Cincinnati,  says: 

"Dr.  Crosby,  several  years  ago,  started  out  on  a  crusade  against 
the  whiskey-shops,  proposing  to  at  least  restrict  and  regulate 
them.  He  was  unwilling  to  adopt  total  abstinence,  local  option, 
or  prohibition.  We  advised  all  to  let  him  go  on  and  do  all  he 
could,  and  we  said,  Let  other  temperance  people  hold  their  prin- 
ciples and  use  their  own  methods  without  pursuing  him  with  re- 
proach.   The  doctor  has  turned  his  face  and  guns  on  the  old 


Comments  of  the  Press.  105 

temperance  workers,  and  now  Lhey  are  obliged,  in  self-defence,  to 
fight  him  and  all  who  are  in  league  with  him.  There  are  some 
wild  temperance  reformers,  without  doubt.  Dr.  Crosby  takes  the 
responsibility  of  opposing  all  schemes,  except  his  own,  as  meth- 
ods of  promoting  temperance  that  are  inexpedient,  ineffectual, 
immoral  or  unscriptural.  Much  that  he  says  is  erroneous  and  ir- 
relevant, while  in  some  respects  his  views  are  correct.  His  argu- 
ment reminds  us  of  the  slavery  discussion  from  1830  to  1860.  He 
is  like  those  who  classed  together  and  opposed  alike  the  organi- 
zation of  anti-slavery  societies;  refusing  to  use  anything  produced 
by  slave  labor;  the  doctrine  that  slaveholding  is  a  sin  per  se ; 
running  off  slaves ;  keeping  slavery  out  of  free  territory,  and  gra- 
dual emancipation.  They  denounced  free  discussion  and  church 
action  as  mixing  politics  and  religion,  and  claimed  that  the  Gos- 
pel is  the  only  remedy  for  all  evils.  In  the  meantime  the  irre- 
pressible conflict  grew  in  intensity  and  ended  in  war.  Whiskey 
is  a  hundredfold  worse  than  slavery.  It  produces  more  suffering 
and  death.  More  lives  are  lost  every  year  by  drunkenness  than 
in  any  year  of  the  war.  Whiskey  is  the  handmaid  of  lust,  of  di- 
vorce, of  murder,  of  political  corruption,  of  Sabbath-breaking,  of 
profanity,  and  almost  every  vice,  and  it  is  increasing  in  power 
and  influence,  and  becoming  more  and  more  haughty  and  defi- 
ant. Its  opposers  are  of  all  sorts — wise  and  unwise,  sound  and 
unsound,  active  and  indolent  but  they  are  all  opposed  to  its  evils, 
and  when  the  crisis  comes  they  will  see  eye  to  eye.  In  a  free 
country  great  revolutions  often  come  very  suddenly.  The  public 
conscience  may  suddenly  get  into  a  rage.  Every  sane  and  intel- 
ligent mind  knows  that  the  Government  is  in  duty  bound  to  pi-o- 
tect  her  citizens  from  the  *voes  and  ruin  of  the  whiskey-shops.  It 
may  not  be  long  until  the  whiskey  party  overact,  and  stir  up  and 
unite  the  friends  of  temperance  to  make  short  work  of  the  evil. 
Then  regulating  the  abomination  will  not  be  thought  of.  Its  de- 
struction will  be  inevitable." 

Tbe  ^yestern  Christian  Advocate,  of  CinciDnati,  says: 

"  Real  temperance  is  wounded,  if  not  slain,  in  the  house  of  its 
professed  friends  when  religionists  like  Governor  Andrew,  How- 
ard Crosby,  and  Dr.  Todd  take  up  arms  in  defence  of  social 
drinking.  In  the  best  classes  of  the  American  people — the  native 
middle  classes,  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  land — a  large  proportion 
of  the  men  and  women  are  in  favor  of  prohibiting  the  manufac- 


106  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

ture  and  sale  of  ardent  spirits  for  use  as  a  beverage.  But  since 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  became  a  steam  ferry-way,  the  temperance 
cause  has  suffered  from  the  introduction  of  foreigners  with  their 
ale,  and  beer,  and  wine  drinking  usages.  The  lower  cla'^ses  every- 
where, particularly  in  cities,  have  become  corrupted  by  saloons 
and  beer-gardens,  and  the  Sabbath  is  the  great  day  for  carousal. 
And  this  evil  is  aggravated  by  the  example  of  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  people  belonging  to  the  fashionable  (we  do  not  say  upper) 
classes,  who  have  permitted  their  habits  to  be  moulded  in  accord- 
ance with  those  of  the  upper  classes  in  foreign  lands,  and  conse- 
quently have  brought  home  with  them  the  social  drinking  cus- 
toms of  those  countries.  The  temperance  cause  has  to  fight  in 
both  these  directions. 

"  Prohibitory  laws  will  not  suppress  all  drinking,  any  more  than 
laws  against  lotteries,  gambling,  and  prostitution  prevent  and 
suppress  these  vices.  But  they  will  place  society  on  the  right 
side.  Any  form  of  license  system  only  brings  society  and  gov- 
ernment into  league  with  vice,  acknowledges  its  legality,  and 
shares  the  profits  of  its  villanies.  In  spite  of  the  opposition  of 
the  Todds  and  Crosbys,  a  better  age  than  the  present  will  place 
intoxication  and  its  accessories  in  the  category  of  social  crimes, 
which  the  law  will  forbid,  and  which  all  good  men  will  labor  to 
exterminate." 

The  Advance,  of  Chicago,  says : 

"  If  only  it  had  been  a  calm  view! 

"  If  that  is  a  calm  view  of  what  the  Christian  temperance  peo- 
ple are  doing  in  this  country  toward  counteracting  what  intem- 
perance is  doing,  what  would  a  perturbed  view  be?  A  discourse 
so  full  of  evidence  of  exasperated  prejudice,  and  so  '  rich  in  abu- 
sive epithet,'  we  have  not  seen  for  a  year  at  least.  Such  variety 
and  impassioned  affluence  of  disparaging  epithet  and  other  char- 
acterization must  have  severely  taxed  even  Chancellor  Crosby's 
well-known  genius  for  language.  .  .   . 

"  On  some  points  we  agree  with  Chancellor  Crosby.  First  of 
all  in  this^  that  '  there  is  no  more  important  question  before  the 
American  people  to-day  than  this :  How  shall  we  stay  this  surg- 
ing tide  of  intemperance? '  We  agree  with  him  in  this:  *  That  it 
is  to  be  answered  on  one  side  by  the  practical  voice  of  society  and 
on  the  other  by  the  edicts  of  our  legislatures.'  In  this,  also: 
That  '  we  should  act  with  an  even  mind  on  so  grave  a  subject, 


Comments  of  tlie  Press.  107 

aud  see  to  it  that  every  step  we  take  is  solidly  founded  on  right 
reason.'  But  as  we  look  forth  upon  our  country  and  other 
countries,  in  city  and  in  villages,  and  note  how  infinite  the  woe 
and  disaster,  the  degradations  and  sorrows,  the  blighting  and  the 
curse,  caused  by  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks,  fermented  or  dis- 
tilled, we  have  no  heart  to  turn  back  and  fire  off  broadsides  of 
abuse  and  scorn  into  the  faces  of  that  now  vast,  and,  thank  God! 
fast-growing  array  of  Christian  men  and  women,  who,  even  if 
with  some  mistakes  and  blunders  to  be  lamented,  are,  neverthe- 
less, the  ones  who  are  striving  most  earnestly  to  stay  the  surging 
tide!  At  this  point  we  are  obliged,  by  our  sense  of  Christian 
manliness  and  self-respect,  sharply  to  part  company  with  the 
lecturer.  Perhaps  as  fair  representatives  of  the  grand  total-ab- 
stinence temperance  movement  of  our  generation  might  be  taken 
Hon  William  E.  Dodge  and  Dr.  Cuyler,  not  stopping  to  name 
others;  for  ourselves,  we  do  not  care  to  fire  off  rhetorical  bomb- 
shells of  abuse  at  their  feet. 

' '  To-day,  in  all  liquor-dealers'  associations,  in  saloons  and 
other  tippling  places.  Dr.  Crosby  is  the  most  popular  '  divine  '  in 
America.  The  Journals  published  in  their  interests  are  exultant 
over  his  counterblast  at  the  temperance  people  and  his  commenda- 
tion of  moderate  drinking. " 


The  United  Freshyterian,  of  Pittsburgh,  says: 

"Even  when  drunkenness  is  not  reached,  there  is  the  impair- 
ment of  mental  and  moral  power,  the  waste  of  money  and  time, 
and  the  demoralizing  effect  of  even  moderate  drinking  habits  to 
be«taken  into  the  account.  From  such  effects,  more  widely  than 
from  extreme  drunkenness,  the  morals,  usefulness,  and  happiness 
of  men,  the  peace  and  comfort  of  families,  and  the  good  order  of 
society  are  suffering. 

*'  Then,  as  a  question  of  expendiency  merely,  where  is  it  best 
to  stop?  Can  any  one  believe  that  it  is  safer  or  easier  to  stop 
after  a  habit  of  drinking  has  been  indulged,  to  however  limited 
an  extent,  than  before  it  has  been  formed  ?  Or  is  there  any  one 
who  does  not  feel  in  regard  to  a  friend  more  security  as  to  his 
future  when  assured  that  he  practises  total  abstinence  ? 

*  •  All  this  Dr.  Crosby  appears  to  overlook,  as  also  the  impor- 
tance of  good  example  in  this  as  in  everything  else.  The  indi- 
vidual liberty  for  which  he  pleads,  as  recognized  by  Paul,  is  by 


108  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

the  same  authority  put  under  tliis  regulation :  '  If  meat  make  my 
brother  to  ofiend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  while  the  world  standeth.' " 

The  New  York  Weekly  Witness  says: 

'•  In  sober  sadness  we  give  our  opinion  that  the  malignancy  of 
the  Evil  One  himself  could  not  devise  a  greater  injury  to  society 
in  general-than  to  put  the  advocacy  of  moderate  drinking  and  op- 
position to  total-abstinence  societies  in  the  mouth  of  an  influen- 
tial and  generally-esteemed  minister  of  the  Gospel.  The  mis- 
takes of  every  man's  life  have  been  many,  but  this  is,  in  our  view, 
a  master-mistake  calculated  to  send  thousands  to  the  pit. 

"  The  fact  that  Dr.  Crosby  occupies  a  prominent  position  in 
the  training  of  ministers,  who  are  in  turn  to  influence  congrega- 
tions and  society  in  general  all  over  the  country,  renders  his  mis- 
take doubly  fatal,  and  wecannot  but  hope  that  the  Lord  will  open 
the  eyes  of  the  good  doctor  lo  see  the  evil  he  has  been  doing,  and 
induce  him,  as  far  as  he  can,  to  counteract  it  ere  the  opportunity 
for  his  doing  so  passes  away  for  ever." 

The'  Central  Christian  Advocate,  of  St.  Louis,  says  : 

"  He  cannot  see  that  this  present  condition  is  the  natural  pro- 
duct of  the  system  that  he  advocates.  The  temperance  cause 
certainly  has  not  produced  the  drunkenness  which  he  condemns. 
The  doctor  is  at  lea&t  twenty  years  behind  the  times.  Probably 
he  does  not  see  the  crowd  of  tipplers,  and  drunkards,  and  dram- 
shop keepers  who  find  comfort  in  his  position." 

The  Michigan  Lever  says: 

*'  The  reverend  gentleman  has  the  thanks  of  all  the  liquor-deal- 
ers in  the  country.  They  endorse  him  to  a  man.  Now  let  him 
extend  his  logic  by  telling  people  to  practise  little  sins  and  avoid 
big  ones.  Sin,  carried  to  excess,  is  a  very  bad  thing,  but  if  peo- 
ple could  so  govern  themselves  as  only  to  commit  minor  trans- 
gressions the  world  would  be  better,  this  preacher  could  say.  He 
might  go  on  and  show  that  the  Master  made  a  mistake  by  urging 
a  warfare  on  all  sin  ;  that  He  could  have  accomplished  more  by 
moderation  and  toleration.  Such  men  only  serve  the  cause  of 
evil,  for  they  encourage  its  abettors." 

The  Methodist,  after  quoliDg  what  Dr.  Crosby  says  against 
the  pledge,  says : 


Comments  of  the  Press.  109 

"  To  which  a  *  free  lover  '  would  add  that,  '  instead  of  regulating 
marriage  '  from  within,  the  customs  of  the  country  '  debauch  the 
conscience  '  by  tying  up  married  couples  with  a  pledge  to  live  to- 
gether '  until  death  parts  them.'  It  might  be  interesting  to  have 
a  definition  of  the  point  or  line  where  pledges  to  do  just  and 
comely  things  become  immoral  and  debauch  the  conscience. 
Every  Christian  has  made  a  pledge  to  his  church  to  do  right  ;  is 
that  also  '  a  moral  error  '  ?  " 

The  Western  Christian  Advocate  says : 

"  The  views  set  forth  by  the  chancellor  would  strike  at  Gods 
law  in  the  Ten  Commandments,  and  make  against  all  human  laws 
for  the  prevention  and  suppression  of  crime.  By  the  same  course 
of  reasoning  society  should  allow  everybody  to  carry  deadly 'wea- 
pons and  trust  to  the  virtue  of  every  individual  not  to  make  dead- 
ly use  of  them.  Society  should  make  no  laws  against  prostitution 
and  its  agents,  no  laws  against  usurious  interest,  and  no  barriers 
to  monopolies,  allow  free  marriage  and  free  divorce,  and  a  hun- 
dred other  things  that  are  now  regarded  as  needing  restraints  and 
within  the  purview  and  province  of  legislation." 

The  Boston  Transcript  says : 

**  Chancellor  Crosby  lias  done  more  to  discourage  those  who  are 
seeking  to  influence  sons,  husbands,  and  brothers  to  abstain  ab- 
solutely from  the  use  of  alcohol,  to  the  end  that  they  and  theirs 
may  be  saved  from  sorrow,  disgrace,  and  ruin,  than  all  the  rum- 
shops  in  Boston." 

The  National  Baptist,  of  Philadelphia,  says  : 
<<  A  great  opportunity  was  thrown  away  ;  the  division  among 
temperance  people  was  made  more  bitter  ;  the  enemies  of  tem- 
perance were  encouraged  ;  and  apparently  much  more  harm  than 
good  was  done." 

The  Lewiston  (Me.)  Journal  says  : 

**  The  trouble  with  men  like  Dr.  Crosby  is  that  they  fail  to  take 
notice  of  stern  facts.  Drunkenness  is  most  prevalent  where  mod- 
erate drinking  is  fashionable  and  no  prohibitory  laws  vex  the  tip- 
pler. Most  men  become  drunkards  by  trying  to  drink  mode- 
rately, and  failing." 

The  Christian  Leader  says : 

*'  Chancellor  Crosby  certainly  has  a  view  of  temperance,  but  he 


110  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

is  a  queer  man  to  call  it  a  *  calm  '  one  His  definition  of  calm- 
ness must  indeed  be  a  puzzle  to  lexicographers.  We  have  sub- 
mitted to  the  penance  of  a  careful  reading  of  the  lecture,  which, 
when  given  in  the  Monday  course,  so  amazed,  we  may  say  so 
chagrined,  his  audience.  His  *  calm  view  of  temperance '  may  be 
condensed  into  something  like  this  :  '  You  men  and  women  who 
advocate  total  abstinence  are  a  set  of  liars,  tricksters,  hypocrites, 
and  infidels  ;  only  you  do  not  know  that  you  are.  You  deal  in 
lies,  and  tricks,  and  perversions  of  Scripture,  yet  your  motive? 
are  good  ! '  Xow,  it  strikes  us  that  while  a  man  may  deal  in  fal- 
lacies and  not  know  that  he  does,  it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  to 
say  that  he  deals  in  falsehoods  and  tricks,  not  knowing  them  to 
be  such.     But  the  chancellor  evidently  has  a  new  dictionary." 

The  Washingtonian,  of  Chicago,  says : 

"  Dr.  Howard  Crosby  occupies  an  unenviable  position  as  a  re- 
tarder  of  true  temperance  work.  He  is  now  spending  his  time 
and  talents  in  trying  to  show  that  men  should  drink  beer  and 
wine  moderately.  Dr.  Crosby  appears  to  be  knowingly  blind.  He 
denies  that  moderate  drinking  leads  to  drunkenness.  He  certain- 
ly knows  better.  .  .  .  The  arguments  of  Chancellor  Crosby  are  the 
veriest  humbug,  and  he  should  no  longer  insult  temperance  peo- 
ple by  professing  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  cause  they  advo- 
cate." 

The  American  Wesleyan  says  : 

"  On  his  own  principles  his  position  is  untenable.  His  Biblical 
argument  for  moderate  drinking  does  not  prove  that  we  should  so 
drink  now.  It  by  no  means  follows,  on  Biblical  principles,  that  a 
practice  once  allowable  is  always  to  be  allowed." 

The  Buffalo  Christian  Advocate  says  : 

"  Now,  we  should  like  to  know  what  hope  there  is  of  securing 
and  maintaining  a  law  that  shall  give  license  to  only  one  seller 
*  to  one  thousand  inhabitants  in  each  town,'  without  first  getting 
a  majority  of  the  people  to  adopt  total  abstinence  ?  " 

The  UpiscojKilHecorcler  says  : 

*'  The  attitude  of  so  great  and  so  good  a  man  as  the  chancellor 
of  the  University  of  New  York  towards  the  temperance  question 
must  cause  grief  and  surprise  to  many.  The  evils  of  moderate 
drinking,  as  the  inevitable  precursor  of  intemperance,  seem  to  us 


Comments  of  the  Press.  Ill 

to  be  beyond  contradiction.  The  drinking  usages  of  society,  from 
the  days  of  Noah  down,  have  only  brought  distress  and  anguish 
upon  the  world.  Drunkenness  has  never  existed  unless  intro- 
duced by  those  usages   .  .  . 

"  If  there  was  any  necessity  for  the  use  of  alcohol  as  a  beverage 
we  can  understand  that  men  should  contend  for  the  right  to  use 
it  in  moderation  ;  but  apart  from  its  use  in  a  medicinal  point  of 
view  it  cannot  be  shown  to  have  ever  been  of  benefit.  It  there- 
fore passes  our  comprehension  that  any  man  can  be  found  to  de- 
fend its  use  in  moderation  even.  To  totally  abstain  from  it  as  a 
beverage  is  safe  for  ourselves  ;  it  is  of  incalculable  advantage  by 
way  of  exaoiple  to  others — our  brethren  for  whom  Christ  died — 
and  it  has  yet  to  be  shown  that  it  has  ever  injured  any  one." 

The  Evangelical  Messenger  says : 

"Dr.  Crosby,  chancellor  of  the  University  of  New  York,  in  a 
recent '  Monday  lecture '  in  Boston,  shocked  the  Bostonians,  and  the 
friends  of  temperance  reform  generally,  by  his  defence  of  '  mode- 
rate drmking.'  While  we  can  admire  the  courage  of  a  man  who 
dares  enunciate  opinions  that  will  leave  him  without  a  following 
— except  that  one  of  doubtful  utility,  the  liquor  interest — we  cannot 
refrain  from  expressing  our  regret  that  he  should  lend  the  power 
of  his  great  name  and  influence  to  justify  a  habit  which  the  ex- 
perience of  years  has  proved  to  be  as  perilous  as  climbing  along 
the  crevice  of  a  glacier  or  the  mouth  of  the  bottomless  pit.  The 
difference  between  a  moderate  and  an  immoderate  drinker  is  often 
more  fanciful  than  real." 

The  Standard,  Chicago,  says  : 

"  We  believe  that  it  is  Dr.  Crosby's  plan  to  regulate  the  trade 
in  intoxicating  drinks,  so  as  to  prevent  the  wholesale  poisoning 
now  practised,  and  so  as  to  afford  opportunity  for  the  testing  of 
his  principle  that  restriction  in  the  sale  and  moderation  in  the 
use  of  such  drinks  are  what  the  case  needs.  We  should  respect- 
fully submit  to  him  that  all  the  facts  of  the  present  situation  testify 
to  the  utter  abortiveness  of  all  measures  of  this  kind." 

The  Springfield  (Mass.)  Bepublican  says : 

"  Dr.  Crosby  makes  one  great  mistake  upon  the  question  of  total 
abstinence,  in  relying  so  confidently  upon  the  fact  that  a  man 
may  drink  wine  and  beer  and  yet  not  become  a  drunkard.  The 
temperance  question  is  most  vitally  a  question  of  the  working 


112  Moderation  vs.  Total  Ahstmence, 

classes.  They  are  the  most  under  temptation,  the  most  easily  de- 
graded to  pauperism  and  crime  in  case  of  excess  of  indulgence. 
Eut  for  them  moderate  drinking  means,  not  a  glass  of  claret  at  a 
dinner-table,  but  an  occasional  drink  of  whiskey  at  a  saloon,  then 
semi-occasional  drinks,  then  two  at  a  time,  and  so  on  till  every- 
thing is  lost.  And  when  Dr.  Crosby  talks  to  such  people  about 
the  'unmanliness,'  the  'intimidation,'  the  'deception'  of  total 
abstinence,  and  attempts  to  save  the  wines  of  polite  society  by 
saying  that  the  State  ought  to  suppress  the  sale  of  distilled  spirits 
and  license  the  other,  he  is  playing  with  fire  without  the  ghost  of 
a  chance  of  turning  on  his  extinguisher." 

The  New  York  Herald  says : 

"  Dr.  Howard  Crosby  has  raised  a  storm  by  his  anti-prohibition 
speech,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  it  will  in  the  end  contribute 
largely  to  the  cause  for  which  he  has  such  unbounded  contempt." 

In  a  letter  to  the  Boston  Traveller  Hon.  Neal  Dow  writes : 

"Old  temperance  men  like  me  are  much  puzzled  to  know  how 
it  can  be  that  educated  and  intelligent  men,  especially  if  Chris- 
tian men,  can  differ  in  opinion  as  to  the  causes  and  the  cure  of 
intemperance,  unless  influenced  by  interest,  appetite,  or  passion, 
as  intelligent  men  should  not,  as  Christian  men  cannot,  be. 

"  Dr.  Crosby  affirms  that  drunkenness  does  not  come  from  drink- 
ing. I  was  astonished  at  that,  as  every  abstainer  may  well  be  ; 
but  it  is  not  worth  while  to  do  more  than  notice  that  amazing 
statement,  which  no  drunkard  even  will  deny  to  be  entirely  un- 
true. I  assume  that  all  the  world  except  Dr.  Crosby  will  admit 
that  drunkenness  comes  from  the  drink,  and  the  habit  of  drinking 
more  and  more  from  the  first  glass,  it  maybe  at  the  father's  table, 
to  the  last  glass  preceding  a  robbery  or  a  murder. 

"  All  the  doctor's  talk  about  Bible  wines  and  Christ's  drinking 
habits  contains  not  one  word,  or  thought,  or  fact  that  is  new;  it 
has  all  been  answered,  and  well  answered,  many  times  by  many 
scholars  as  ripe  as  he  can  claim  to  be,  knowing  the  Bible  and  Bible 
history,  and  the  language  of  the  Bible,  and  the  Greek  as  well  as 
lie,  whose  conclusions  were  directly  the  reverse  of  his.  .  .  . 

"I  assume  that  eveiybody  knows,  except  Dr.  Crosby,  that  drunk- 
enness comes  from  the  drink.  Where  does  that  come  from  ? 
Through  the  open  door  of  moderate  drinking.  There  comes  in  its 
train  upon  the  world  a  horrible  procession  of  poverty,  pauperism, 


Comments  of  the  Press.  113 

wretchedness,  and  crime.  Sufferings  without  number,  that  can 
be  measured  by  no  scale  of  woe  ;  mumbling  idiocy,  wild  insanity, 
secret  plundering,  bloody  robbery,  midnight  incendiarism,  and 
fearful  murder  ;  women  in  want,  wretchedness  and  rags  ;  help 
less  children,  knowing  nothing  but  gaunt  hunger,  dreadful  abuse, 
sin  and  shame— all  these  and  more  come  in  upon  the  world  only 
through  the  open  door  of  moderate  drinking.  We  teetotalers 
are  striving  with  all  our  might  to  shut  that  door  to  keep  these 
horrors  out.  Dr.  Crosby  and  others  like  him  are  struggling  to 
keep  it  open. 

"On  both  sides  we  are  actuated  by  a  purpose.  We  say  if  that 
door  can  be  shut  the  morrow's  sun  would  rise  upon  a  sober  world; 
there  would  be,  there  could  be,  no  more  drunkenness,  and  no 
more  of  the  sin,  shame,  and  misery  coming  from  it.  That  and 
that  only  is  our  motive.  We  make  great  and  many  sacrifices  of 
time,  labor,  money,  and  anxious  care  to  accomplish  it.  Dr.  Crosby 
and  those  with  him  resist  with  all  their  power.  Why  ?  They  have 
and  must  have  some  motive,  as  we  have.  What  is  it  ?  '  If  that 
door  be  shut  where  and  how  can  we  obtain  our  drink  ?  Don't  talk 
to  us  about  the  general  good,  the  interests  of  the  church ;  we  will 
not  consent  to  be  shut  out  from  our  '  wine  and  mild  beer.'" 


THE  VOICE  OF  SCIENCE. 


I'^HE   following  are  some  of   the  later    declarations    of 
eminent   physicians   and  scientists  concerning  alco- 
"     hoi : 
Dr.  Benjamin  Ward  Richardson  says  : 

'"Alcohol  produces  many  diseases  ;  and  it  constantly  happens 
that  persons  die  of  diseases  which  have  their  origin  solely  in  the 
drinking  ol  alcohol,  while  the  cause  itself  is  never  for  a  moment 
suspected.  A  man  may  be  considered  by  his  friends  and  neigh- 
bors, as  well  as  by  himself,  to  be  a  sober  and  a  temperate  man; 
He  may  say  quite  truthfully  that  he  was  never  tipsy  in  the  whole 
course  of  his  life  ;  and  yet  it  is  quite  possible  that  such  a  man 
may  die  of  disease  caused  by  the  alcohol  he  has  taken,  and  by  no 
other  cause  whatever.  This  is  one  of  the  most  dreadful  evils  of 
alcohol,  that  it  kills  insidiously,  as  if  it  were  doing  no  harm,  or 
as  if  it  were  doing  good,  while  it  is  destroj-ing  life." 

Of  his  research  concerning  alcohol,  as  a  scientific  en- 
quirer, Dr.  Richardson  says : 

"To  the  research  1  devoted  three  years,  from  1863  to  1866, 
modifying  experiments  in  every  conceivable  way,  taking  advan- 
tage of  seasons  and  varying  temperatures  of  season,  extending  ob- 
servation from  one  class  of  animals  to  another*  and  making  com- 
parative researches  with  other  bodies  of  the  alcohol  series  than  the 
ethylic  or  common  alcohol. 

"  The  results,  I  confess,  were  as  surprising  to  me  as  any  one  else, 
They  were  surprising  from  their  definitiveness  and  their  uni- 
formity. They  were  most  surprising  from  the  complete  contra- 
diction they  gave  to  the  popular  idea  that  alcohol  is  a  supporter 
and  sustainer  of  the  animal  temperature. 

"  I.  That  it  is  an  entire  fallacy  to  suppose  that  alcohol,  m  any 
of  its  forms  as  intoxicating  drink,  is  the  gift  of  God  to  man. 

"II.  That  if  the  habit  of  drinking  intoxicating  beverages  is 
never  indulged,  it  is  never  felt  as  a  want. 

114 


The   Voice  of  Science.  115 

"III.  If  this  habit  be  indulged,  the  difficulties  of  throwing  it 
off  are  tenfold  increased. 

"  IV.  You  may  further  teach  by  history  and  example — but  al- 
ways better  by  example— that  the  hardest  work,  mental  and  bodily, 
is  best  carried  out  without  the  stimulating  effects  of  this  agent 
which  so  many  look  to  for  support  in  all  their  labors. 

"V.  That  alcohol  has  no  claim,  in  a  scientific  sense,  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  sustainer  either  of  bodily  or  mental  life  or  work. 

''VI.  That  in  alcohol  there  is  nothing  that  can  build  up  any 
tissue  or  supply  any  force. 

"  VII.  That  in  approaching  the  subject  of  temperance,  and  in 
showing  the  uselessness  of  the  most  mischievous  of  all  agents 
within  the  reach  of  men,  you  are  promoting  a  good  which  extends 
beyond  your  own  time." 

The  followino-  is  from  a  declaration  sent  to  the  Interna- 
tional Temperance  Congress  at  Brussels,  Belgium,  August, 
1880,  by  the  council  of  the  '^  British  Medical  Temperance 
Association,"  embracing  in  its  membership  upwards  of  two 
hundred  leading  physicians  and  surgeons  of  Great  Britain, 
with  Dr.  B.  W.  Richardson  as  president,  and  J.  J.  Ridge, 
M.D.,  B.S.,  B  A.,  honorary  secretary  : 

**  Passing  from  the  particular  art  of  prescribing  alcohol  to  our 
observation  of  the  action  of  alcohol  on  persons  generally — ^that  is 
to  say,  to  its  employment  as  a  beverage — we  are  led  to  the  follow- 
ing conclusions: 

"  That  alcohol  cannot  in  any  sense  be  considered  as  a  necessity 
for  the  maintenance  of  healthy  life. 

"  That  it  is  not  a  food  in  any  tnie  and  practical  sense  of  that 
term. 

"  That  labor  of  the  severest  kind,  mental  and  bodily,  can  be 
carried  on  without  it,  and  that  the  steadiest  and  best  work  is  best 
done  without  it. " 

The  International  Medical  Congress,  Section  on  Medicine, 
held  in  Philadelphia,  1876,  adopted  the  following  conclu- 
sions concerning  the  use  of  alcohol : 

"1.  Alcohol  is  not  shown  to  have  a  definite  food  value  by  any 
of  the  usual  methods  of  chemical  analysis  or  physiological  inves- 
tigation. 


116  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

"  2.  Its  use  as  a  medicine  is  chiefly  that  of  a. cardiac  stimulant 
and  often  admits  of  substitution. 

"3.  As  a  medicine  it  is  not  well  fitted  for  self-prescription  by 
the  laity,  and  the  medical  profession  is  not  accountable  for  such 
administration  or  for  the  enormous  evils  arising  therefrom. 

"4.  The  purity  of  alcoholic  liquors  is  in  general  not  as  well  as- 
sured as  that  of  articles  used  for  medicine  should  be.  The  various 
mixtures  when  used  as  medicine  should  have  definite  and  known 
composition  and  should  not  be  interchanged  promiscuously." 

About  two  hundred  physicians,  surgeons,  etc.,  of  New 
York,  Brooklyn,  and  vicinity,  recently  signed  the  following 
medical  declaration  : 

"1.  In  view  of  the  alarming  prevalence  and  ill  effects  of  intem- 
perance, with  which  none  are  so  familiar  as  members  of  the  medi- 
cal profession,  and  which  have  called  forth  from  eminent  English 
physicians  the  voice  of  warning  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain 
concerning  the  use  of  alcoholic  beverages,  we,  the  undersigned, 
members  of  the  medical  profession  of  New  York  and  vicinity, 
unite  in  the  declaration  that  we  believe  alcohol  should  be  classed 
with  other  powerful  drugs  ;  that,  when  prescribed  medicinally,  it 
should  be  with  conscientious  caution,  and  a  sense  of  grave  re- 
sponsibility. 

"  3.  We  are  of  opinion  that  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquor  as  a 
beverage  is  productive  of  a  large  amount  of  physical  disease  ; 
that  it  entails  diseased  appetites  upon  offspring  ;  and  that  it  is  the 
cause  of  a  large  percentage  of  the  crime  and  pauperism  of  our 
cities  and  country. 

'•3.  We  would  welcome  any  judicious  and  effective  legislation 
— State  and  national — which  should  seek  to  confine  the  traffic  in 
alcohol  to  the  legitimate  purposes  of  medical  and  other  sciences, 
art,  and  mechanism." 

The  American  Medical  Association  also  adopted  substan- 
tially the  above  declaration. 

Dr.  James  Edmimds,  of  London,  says: 

"  It  is  admitted  by  every  one  that  alcohol  is  the  cause  of  more 
than  half  the  insanity  we  have.  I  am  not  so  familiar  with  the 
facts  on  this  subject  here  as  I  should  naturally  be  at  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  .  .  .  It  is  a  fact  which  cannot  be  disputed, 
that  disease  of  the  liver,  disease  of  the  lungs,  disease  of  the  tis- 


'  Tlie   Voice  of  Science.  117 

•sues  of  the  body,  are  induced  directly  by  the  use  of  alcohol,  and 
that,  as  a  general  rule,  you  may  say  that  where  you  have  alcohol 
used  most  largely  and  most  frequently  there  these  diseases  and 
degenerations  in  the  tissues  of  the  body  become  most  marked." 

Dr.  Willard  Parker,  of  New  York,  says : 

'  ^  Alcohol  has  no  place  in  the  healthy  system,  but  is  an  irritant 
poison,  producing  a  diseased  condition  of  body  and  mind.  It  has 
been  demonstrated  that  the  use  of  alcohol  when  employed  moder- 
ately, as  many  young  men  often  use  it,  as  they  think  with  im- 
punity, makes  the  average  of  life  thirty-five  and  a  half,  while  that 
of  non-users  reached  an  average  of  sixty-four  and  one-sixth  years, 
a  difference  of  about  twenty-nine  years  to  each  individual  ;  a 
thousand  individuals,  39,900." 

Sir  Henry  Thompson  says : 

"  I  have  long  had  the  conviction  that  there  is  no  greater  cause 
of  evil,  moral  and  physical,  in  this  country  than  the  use  of  alco- 
holic beverages  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  extreme  indulgence 
which  produces  drunkenness.  The  habitual  use  of  fermented  li- 
quors to  an  extent  far  short  of  what  is  necessary  to  produce  that 
condition,  and  such  as  is  quite  common  in  all  ranks  of  society, 
injures  the  body  and  diminishes  the  mental  power  to  an  extent 
which  1  think  few  people  are  aware  of.  Such,  at  all  events,  is 
the  result  of  observation  during  more  than  twenty  years  of  pro- 
fessional life  devoted  to  hospital  practice,  and  to  private  prac- 
tice in  every  rank  above  it.  Thus  I  have  no  hesitation  in  attri- 
buting a  very  large  proportion  of  some  of  the  most  painful  and 
dangerous  maladies  which  come  under  my  notice,  as  well  as  those 
which  every  medical  man  has  to  treat,  to  the  ordinary  and  daily 
use  of  fermented  drink  taken  in  the  quantity  which  is  convention- 
ally deemed  moderate.'' 

Dr.  N.  S.  Davis,  of  Chicago,  says  : 

"  The  use  of  alcoholic  drinks  diminishes  man's  capacity  to  en- 
dure both  mental  and  physical  labor,  increases  his  predisposition 
to  disease,  and  shortens  the  average  duration  of  life." 

W.  B.  Carpenter,  M.D.,  says: 

'Alcohol  cannot  supply  anything  which  is  essential  to  the 
due  nutrition  of  the  tissues." 


118  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

Albert  Day,  M.D.,  Superintendent  of  the  Washingtonian 
Home,  says : 

'^  have  treated  nearly  7,000  cases  of   inebriety,   and  ei?hr- 
tenths  of  that  number  originated  from  wine  and  malt  liquors." 


THE  VOICE  OF  SCRIPTURE. 


FROM   a  vast  number  of  authorities  a  few  names  are 
chosen  of  men  no  less  able  in  scholarship  than  devout 
in  life.     Tbey  have  this  advantage  over  some  others, 
that  they  wrote  after  having  made  a  personal  and  patient 
examination  of  tbe  whole  Bible. 

Rev.  Dr.  Adam  Clark,  on  Gen.  xl.  11,  says : 

"  From  this  we  find  that  wine  anciently  was  the  mere  expressed 
j^ice  of  the  grape  without  fermentation.  The  saky,  or  cup-bearer, 
took  the  bunch,  pressed  the  juice  into  the  cup,  and  instantly  de- 
livered it  into  the  hands  of  his  master.  This  was  anciently  the 
yayin  [wine]  of  the  Hebrews,  the  oinos  [wine]  of  the  Greeks,  and 
the  mustum  [new  fresh  wine]  of  the  ancient  Latins." 

Bagster's  ^'  Comprehensive  Bible  "  quotes  Dr.  Clark  with 
approbation. 

Parkinson,  in  his  "  Theatrum  Botanicum/'  says : 

"  The  juice  or  liquor  pressed  out  of  the  ripe  grapes  is  called 
vinum  [wine].  Of  it  is  made  both  sapa  and  defriitum,  in  English 
cute — that  is  to  say  boiled  wine,  the  latter  boiled  down  to  the  half, 
the  former  to  the  third  part"  ("Bible  Commentary,"  xxxvi ) 

This  testimony  was  written  about  a  d.  1640,  centuries  be- 
fore there  was  any  temperance  organization. 

Dr.  Thomas  Scott  says : 

*'  Heavenly  blessings  are  represented  by  a  cup  of  wholesome,  ex- 
hilarating wine  ;  but  the  wrath  of  God  by  a  cup  of  wine  mingled 
with  ingredients  of  that  kind  which  tend  to  produce  fear,  distress, 
and  despondency  ;  from  this  cup  (not  the  other)  the  Lord  dis- 
penses to  sinners." 

119 


120  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

Dr.  Ralph  TVardlaw,  of  Prov.  xxxi.  4-7,  says : 

"  I  pity  the  state  of  that  man's  mind  who  can  .  .  .  allow  him- 
self to  suppose  that  this  passage  contains  an  inspired  toleration  of 
excess — a  permission  and  encouragement  to  seek  relief  in  the  in- 
sensibility of  intoxication — to  make  wine  the  refuge  from  melan- 
choly. Would  it  be  fair  to  set  this  one  passage  against  the  whole 
Bible  ?— one  text  against  its  entire  scope,  and  unnumbered  posi- 
tive, and  pointed,  and  damnatory  prohibitions  ?  .  .  .  But  when 
men  do  take  hold  of  a  passage  like  this,  and  quote  it  with  a  leer 
while  they  are  putting  the  bottle  to  each  other's  mouths,  and 
drinking  themselves  drunk,  they  only  discover  the  bent  of  their 
minds." 

Dr.  F.  R.  Lees  says : 

"  In  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Bible  a  dozen  words,  with  their 
special  meanings,  are  all  hidden  under  the  English  terms  'wine' 
and  '  strong  drink  ' ;  and  some  of  these  words  clearly  and  undeni- 
ably denote  wn/erme'/i^e^  and  w/i/;'/(>j'2C<'<?*/'^  wine.  About  sixty 
texts  of  the  authorized  version  refer  to  wine  (or  what  is  sup- 
posed to  be  wine)  with  approbation,  where  the  context  shows  or 
implies  it  to  be  a  natural  and  unfermented  product.  Not  more 
than  fifty-two  texts  can  he  'proved,  by  the  context,  to  refer  to  in- 
toxicating wine,  and  not  one  of  these  is  connected  with  the  Divine 
blessing.  On  the  contrary,  one-half  of  them  describe  it  as  evil,  as 
a  mocker,  and  a  stupefier,  or  else  prohibit  it,  either  in  general,  or 
in  special  cases." 

Again  : 

'*  The  Bible  teaches  clearly  and  fully  by  a  series  of  con- 
tinuous and  consistent  testimonies  that  intoxicating  drink  is  an 
evil  article,  poisonous  to  the  body,  seductive  to  the  soul,  and  cor- 
rupting to  the  circumstances  of  man;  or  to  put  the  idea  in  another 
shape,  we  hold  that  the  Bible  vindicates  its  claim  to  inspiration 
by  having  anticipated  on  this  point  the  fullest  witness  of  science 
and  having  exhausted  the  teachings  of  human  history." 

Rev.  James  Smith,  M.A.,  says  : 

'•We  submit  upon  the  whole  question  that  Scripture  teaching 
cannot  be  held  as  sanctioning  or  commending  any  kind  of  intoxi- 
cating liquor,  that  all  its  statements,  examined  in  the  light  of 


Tile   Voice  of  Scripture,  121 

science,  experience,  and  history,  are  capable  of  a  more  satisfactory 
explanation  without  the  necessity  of,  that  any  such  sanction  is 
given,  and  that  even  if  it  were  given  to  such  fermented  wine  as 
was  in  common  use  in  those  days,  no  argument  can  warrantably 
be  based  on  that  in  favor  of  our  own  drinking  usages.  ...  A 
thorough  examination  of  the  subject  shows  that  the  Bible  is  slan- 
dered when  it  is  represented  as  sanctionmg  such  drinking  usages 
as  ours,  which  are  the  giant  curse  of  our  country  and  the  great 
enemy  of  religion  ;  and  that  Scripture  teaching,  when  rightly 
read  and  impartially  interpreted,  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
teaching  of  science  and  the  testimony  of  ex-perience. 

"We  find,  then,  that  the  temperance  reformation  is  in  perfect 
harmony  with  Scripture  principles  bearing  on  personal  religion, 
our  duty  to  our  neighbor,  and  to  the  cause  of  God.  In  view  of 
the  relation  which  drink,  and  the  fashions  and  customs  associated 
with  it,  bear  to  the  true  character  and  work  of  the  Christian 
church  as  a  witness  for  Christ,  does  he  not  say  to  all  his  pro- 
fessed followers  through  the  temperance  reformation:  'Lovest 
thou  me  more  than  these  9 '  " 

Rev.  Dr.  George  DuflOield  says : 

*' Never  has  there  been  a  book  more  abused  by  wine-bibbers 
and  drunkards,  for  their  justification  or  excuse,  than  our  English 
version  of  the  Bible.  .  .  .  The  contrast  given  in  the  sacred  Scrip- 
tures between  the  wine  that  intoxicates  and  that  which  contains 
not  alcoholic  poison  is  too  strong  and  clear  to  admit  of  appeal  to 
them,  with  any  hope  of  success,  by  the  advocates  of  moderate 
drinking.  .  .  .  Let  all  the  passages  in  which  wine,  according  to 
our  English  translation,  is  spoken  of  be  examined  in  the  original, 
and  due  respect  be  paid  to  the  import  of  their  terms,  and  there 
will  not  be  found  any  approval,  direct  or  indirect,  of  drink  that 
intoxicates." 

Dr.  Dawson  Burns,  in  '^  Christendom  and  the  Drink  Cfurse,*' 
says: 

"From  all  that  has  been  advanced  it  appears  a  reasonable  con- 
clusion that  the  regard  to  personal  well-being  which  Christianity 
enjoins,  not  only  for  the  sake  of  the  individual  himself  ^  a  unit, 
but  also  for  the  sake  of  the  society  of  which  he  is  a  living  factor, 
is  better  complied  with  by  abstinence  from  alcoholic  beverages 
than  by  most-carefuUy  regulated  use. " 


122  Moderation  vs.  Toted  Ahstinence. 

Tayler  Lewis,  LL.D.,  says : 

''Anti -temperance  critics  are  fond  of  charging  the  zealous  tem- 
perance advocates  with  perversions  of  Scripture  and  strained  in- 
terpretations. This  is  doubtless  true  in  some  cases,  but  the  fault 
is  far  more  apt  to  be  on  the  other  side.  The  whole  scope  and 
spirit  of  a  precept  is  often  overlooked  by  the  wine  advocate,  and 
some  mere  contrast  or  illustration  (belonging  not  to  the  inspired 
heart  of  the  passage,  but  to  the  necessarily  imperfect  human  lan- 
guage in  which  it  is  conveyed,  and  to  the  imperfect  human 
knowledge  which  is  ap  inseparable  accompaniment  of  such  lan- 
guage) is  elevated  into  all  the  dignity  and  authority  of  a  precept, 
commanding  us  directly  to  drink  wine,  as  though  it  were  good 
per  se — a  duty,  in  fact,  the  neglect  of  which  would  be  the  slight- 
ing of  the  Divine  beneficence.  The  much-talked  of  sin  per  se  of 
the  other  side,  however  strained  and  harsh  it  may  sometimes  ap- 
pear, is  far  more  sound  and  rational.  Thus,  for  example,  Proverbs 
xxxi.  6,  7  is  taken  by  some  as  not  only  a  perfect  justification  of 
wine-drinking  as  a  common  practice  but  even  as  a  command  to 
do  so  in  certain  cases.  When  we  look,  however,  at  the  whole 
passage,  and  study  its  spirit,  we  find  it  to  be  one  of  the  strongest 
abstinence  texts  in  the  whole  Bible." 

Eev.  Dr.  Albert  Barnes,  in  his  commentary  on  John  ii.  10, 


"The  wine  of  Judea  was  the  pure  juice  of  the  grape,  without 
any  mixture  of  alcohol,  and  commonly  weak  and  harmless.  It 
was  the  common  drink  of  the  people,  and  did  not  tend  to  produce 
intoxication." 

Dr.  Patton  says : 

"  All  acquainted  with  Mr.  Barnes  know  that  he  would  not 
make  «uch  a  statement  until  he  had  given  the  subject  a  patient 
and  thorough  examination.  Having  scrutinized  all  the  authori- 
ties, he  has  thus  recorded  upon  the  printed  page  his  clear  and 
honest  convictions." 

The  Eev.  Dr.  Jacobus,  commenting  on  the  wine  made  by 
Christ,  tays : 

"  This  wine  was  not  that  fermented  liquor  which  passes  now 
under  that  name.    All  who  know  of  the  wines  then  used  will 


The   Voice  of  Scrijdiore.  123 

understand  rather  the  nnferraented  juice  of  the  grape.  The  pre- 
sent wines  of  Jerusalem  and  Lebanon,  as  we  tasted  them,  were 
commonly  boiled  and  sweet,  without  intoxicating  qualities  such 
as  we  here  get  in  liquors  called  wines.  The  boiling  prevents  the 
fermentation.  Those  were  esteemed  the  best  wines  which  were 
least  strong." 

Dr.  John  J.  Owcd,  in  his  ''  Commentary,"  says  : 
"As  wine  was  a  common  beverage  in  that  land  of  vineyards 
in  its  unfermented  state,  our  Lord  most  likely  drank  it." 

Dr.  Patton  adds : 

"  The  Saviour  did  not  turn  aside  from  his  work  to  clear  him- 
self from  the  charges  which  malignity  and  falsehood  brought 
against  him.  He  simply  said  :  '  Wisdom  is  justified  of  her  chil- 
dren ' — that  is,  '  My  work  and  my  character  will  ultimately  shield 
me  from  the  power  of  all  false  accusations.  Those  who  know  me 
will  not  be  affected  by  them,  and  those  who  hate  me  will  not 
cease  from  their  calumny.'  " 

Dr.  Eliphalet  Nott,  president  of  Union  College,  says: 

"  That  unfermented  grape-juice  was  called  wine  is  as  apparent 
as  it  is  that  it  was  used  as  a  beverage.  It  was  not  only  called 
wine,  but  it  was  also  accounted  to  be 'good  wine.'  .  .  .  The 
juice  of  the  grape  in  its  natiu-al  state  is  either  wine  before  fer- 
mentation or  it  is  not.  Be  it,  then,  that  before  fermentation, 
though  often  called  wine,  it  is  not  so,  but  merely  something  else 
out  of  which  wine  is  made.  This  admitted,  then  all  the  com- 
mendations of  the  fruit  of  the  vine  previous  to  fermentation,  with 
which  the  Bible  abounds,  are  not  commendations  of  loineatall,  hut 
merely  commendations  of  that  out  of  which  wine  is  made;  and 
all  the  condemnations  of  wine  with  which  the  Bible  also  abounds 
are  condemnations  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine,  not  before  but  after 
fermentation,  and  are  therefore  condemnations  not  of  that  out  of 
which  wine  is  made,  but  condemnations  of  the  veritable  article 
made — wixe  itself." 

Again  asks  Dr.  Nott : 

"Can  the  same  thing  in  the  same  state  be  good  and  bad,  a 
symbol  of  wrath  and  a  symbol  of  mercy,  a  thing  to  be  sought 
after  and  a  thmg  to  be  avoided  ?  Certainly  not.  And  is  the 
Bible,  then,  inconsistent  with  itself  ?    No,  certainly." 


124  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence, 

Rev.  Dr.  William  Patton  says  : 

*'  More  than  thirty-fire  years  since,  when  revising  the  study  of 
Hebrew  with  Professor  Seixas,  an  eminent  Hebrew  teacher,  I 
submitted  to  him  the  collation  of  texts  which  I  had  made  with  the 
request  that  he  would  give  me  his  deliberate  opinion.  He  took  the 
manuscript,  and  a  few  days  after  returned  it  with  the  statement: 
*  Your  discriminations  are  just ;  they  denote  that  there  were  two 
kinds  of  wine,  and  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  justify  this  view.* 
Thus  fortified,  I  hesitated  no  longer,  but,  by  sermons  and  ad- 
dresses, made  known  my  convictions." 

Commenting  on  Gal.  v.,  19-24,  Dr.  Patton  says : 

•*  Temperance,  which  is  self-restraint /?'owi,  and  not  iiiy  the  use 
of  whatever  is  injurious,  is  here  placed  in  opposition  to  drunken- 
ness.   To  be  safe,  abstain." 

Again,  closing  his  work  "  Bible  Wines,"  he  says : 

*'  Besides  these  testimonies,  a  goodly  number  of  men,  well  read 
in  ancient  lore  and  learned  in  the  original  languages  of  the  Word 
of  God,  have,  by  patient  study,  been  led  to  the  same  conclusion. 
The  company  of  such  is  rapidly  increasing  both  in  Great  Britain 
and  America.  We  do  not  despair,  but  confidently  believe  that  the 
time  is  not  far  distant  when  no  drinker,  nor  vender,  nor  defender 
of  alcoholic  wines  will  find  a  shelter  and  a  house  of  refuge  in  the 
Scriptures  of  God.     Let  there  be  light  I" 

Dr.  G.  W.  Samson  says : 

**  The  Egyptians  and  Hebrews  had  an  unfermented  wine,  as  a 
chain  of  authorities  from  Moses,  the  historian  and  lawgiver,  to 
Fuerst,  the  latest  Hebrew  lexicographer,  attest.  .  .  .  Modem 
investigations  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  tirosh  was  must,  or  un- 
fermented wine.  This  will  appear — for  the  testimonies  to  this 
effect  are  numerous,  and  their  study  most  effective — by  the  tracing 
of  its  Hebrew  origin,  of  the  cognate  Arabic,  of  the  Greek  trans- 
lation made  about  B.C.  300,  of  the  Talmud  comments,  of  the 
Latin  version  of  Jerome,  prepared  about  a.d.  400,  and  of  several 
later  versions.  .  .  .  '  Wine  is  a  mocker  ' ;  '  At  the  last  it  blteth  like 
a  serpent ' ;  '  It  is  not  for  princes  to  drink  wine ' ;  these  are  unquali- 
fied in  their  declaration,  and  hence  all  qualified  utterances  that 
seem  to  modify  their  manifest  assertion  should  not  override  but 
be  made  to  harmonize  with  these  declarations." 


The  Voice  of  Scrii^tiire,  125 

Prof.  Moses  Stuart  says  : 

"  '  Facts  show  that  the  ancients  not  only  preserved  their  wines 
unfermented,  but  regarded  it  as  of  a  higher  flavor  and  finer  quah- 
ty  than  fermented  wine.'  There  is  no  ancient  custom  with  a  bet- 
ter amount  and  character  of  proof  than  this.  ...  My  final  con- 
clusion is  this— viz.,  that  whenever  the  Scriptures  speak  of  wine 
as  a  comfort,  a  blessing,  or  a  libation  to  God,  and  rank  it  with 
such  articles  as  corn  and  oil,  they  mean— they  can  mean— on/^ 
such  icine  as  contained  no  alcohol  that  could  have  a  mischievous 
tendency  ;  that  wherein  they  denounce  it,  prohibit  it,  and  con- 
nect it  with  drunkenness  and  revelling,  they  can  mean  only  alco- 
holic or  intoxicating  ivine. 

"If  I  take  the  position  that  God's  Word  Siudicorks  entirely  har- 
monize, I  must  take  the  position  that  the  case  before  us  is  as  I 
have  represented  it  to  be. 

"  What,  then,  is  the  difficulty  in  taking  the  position  that  the  good 
and  innocent  wine  is  meant  in  all  cases  where  it  is  commended 
and  allowed  ;  or  that  the  alcoholic  or  intoxicating  wine  is  meant 
in  all  cases  of  prohibition  and  denunciation  ? 

"I  cannot  refuse  to  take  this  position,  without  virtually  im- 
peaching the  Scriptures  of  contradiction  or  ineonsisteiicy.  I  can- 
not admit  that  God  has  give  liberty  to  persons  in  health  to  drink 
alcoholic  wine  without  admitting  that  his  Word  and  his  works  are 
at  variance.  The  law  against  such  drinking  which  he  has  en- 
stamped  on  our  nature  stands  out  prominently — read  and  as- 
sented to  by  all  sober  and  thinking  men  ;  is  his  Word  now  at 
variance  with  this  ?  Without  reserve,  I  am  prepared  to  answer  in 
the  negative." 

Re7.  Canon  Farrar,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  says: 

*'  When  a  youth  I  was  mainly  a  water-drinker.  When  I  was 
an  undergraduate,  although  I  had  heard  little  or  nothing  of  the 
temperance  movement,  I  never  had  once  a  bottle  of  wine  or  spi- 
rits of  any  kind  in  my  rooms.  When  I  became  a  man,  my  thoughts 
and  energies  were  greatly  turned  in  other  directions,  and  if  I 
thought  of  total  abstinence  at  all  (which  I  scarcely  ever  did),  I  re- 
garded it  as  a  somewhat  harmless  but  perfectly  amiable  eccen- 
tricity. It  was  only  two  years  ago  that  my  attention  was  first  seri- 
ously called  to  the  enormous  evil  of  drink,  and  to  the  immense 
misery  it  is  causing  not  only  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  this  land,  but  almost  even  the  entire  world.     And  when  I  came 


126  Moderation  vs.  Total  Abstinence. 

to  London,  from  the  first  moment  when  my  attention  was  called 
to  it  I  almost  entirely  ceased  to  touch  any  fermented  liquor;  and 
seeing  what  I  did  see — for  I  suppose  none  but  a  London  clergy- 
man in  such  a  parish  as  mine  really  knows  the  extent  of  the  evil 
— I  saw  it  would  become  inevitable  for  me  veiy  soon  to  sign  the 
pledge.  But  I  did  not  wish  to  act  hastily  in  the  matter,  or  to 
plunge  into  it  in  a  sudden  fit  of  enthusiasm.  There  were  certain 
facts  about  which  I  wished  to  speak  from  my  own  knowledge,  and 
certain  truths  which  I  wished  to  resolve  from  my  own  experience, 
and  therefore,  though  I  continued  to  drink  water,  I  did  not  al- 
ways refuse  wine,  for  reasons  which  were  well  known  to  my  friends, 
until  about  a  year  and  a  quarter  ago,  when  I  signed  the  pledge  at 
the  oflBces  of  the  Church  of  England  Temperance  Society." 


NATIONAL  TEMPERANCE  SOCIETI 


Hon.  'Wm.  E.  Dodge, 

President. 


H.  B.  Spelman, 

Treasurer. 


J.  N.  Stearns, 

Cor.  Sec.  and  Pub.  Agent. 

THE  NATIONAL  TEMPERANCE  SOCIETY,  organized  in  1865  for  the  purpose  of  sup- 
pling a  sound  and  able  temperance  literature,  have  already  stereotyped  and  publiPhed 
over  eight  hundred  publications  of  all  sorts  and  sizes,  from  the  one-page  tract  up  to  the 
bound  volume  of  500  pages.  This  list  comprises  books,  tracts,  and  pamphlets,  cont^ning 
essays,  stories,  sermons,  argument,  statistics,  history,  etc.,  upon  every  phase  of  tl3  ques- 
tion.   Special  attention  has  been  given  to  the  department 

FOR    SUNDAY-SCHOOL    LIBRARIES. 

One  hundred  and  eight  volumes  have  already  been  issued,  written  by  some  of  the  best 
aathors  in  the  land.  These  have  been  carefully  examined  and  approved  by  the  Publication 
Committee  of  the  Society,  representing  the  various  religious  denominations  and  temperance 
r^rganizations  of  the  country,  which  consists  of  the  following  members  : 

PETER  CARTER, 
Rev.  W.  T.   SABINE, 
A.  A.  ROBBINS, 
Rkv.  HALSEY  MOORE, 


T.  a.  BROUWER, 
Rev.  R.   S.   MACARTHUR, 
J.  B.   DUNN,  D.D., 
Rev.  a.  G.  LAWSON, 
J.  P.  NEWMAN,  D.D. 


Rev.  ALFRED   TAYLOR- 
R.   R.   SLNCLAIR. 
JAMES  BLACK, 
J.  N.  STEARNS. 


The  volumes  have  been  cordially  recommended  by  leading  clergymen  of  all  denomina- 
tions, and  by  numer-ous  Ecclesiastical  bodies  and  Temperance  Organizations  all  over  the 
tand.  They  should  be  in  every  Sunday-school  Library.  The  following  is  a  list  of  some  of 
the  latest  and  the  best  issued  : 

Our  Homes.     By  Mart  Dwinell  Chellis.     12mo,  426  pages $150 

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Over  the  Way.     By  Mrs.  H.  J.  Moore.     12mo,  213  pages i   QO 

White  Hands  and  White  Hearts.    By  Ernest  Gilmore.    i2mo, 

278  pages j  00 

Amid  the  Shadows.    By  Mrs.  M.  F.  Martin.     12mo,  412  pages. . .  1  25 

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Mr.  Mackenzie's  Answer.    By  Faye  Huntington.    352  pages...  1  25 

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From  Father  to  Son.     By  Mary  Dwinell  Chellis.    420  pages...  1  25 

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No  Danger.     By  Mary  J.  hedges.     12mo,  360  pages 1  25 

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Address         J  N.  STEARNS,  Publishing  Agent, 

58  Reade  Street,  New  York  City, 


Text-Book  0F""TEMPERAr^cL 

By  Dr.  F.  JR.  LEES,  F.8.A.,  of  England. 

Price  Reduced. -Price  $1  25  in  cloth,  50  cents  paper  cover. 
This  highly  important  and  much  needed  work  is  a  complete  compend  <A 
the  theory  and  doctrine  of  total  abstinence,  and  of  the  historical,  Biblical 
physiological,  statistical,  and  philosophical  arguments  for  Teetotalism,  con 
laining  all  that  is  necessary  to  give  a  thorough  and  intelligent  comprehen. 
iion  of  temperance  principles  and  of  the  duty  of  individual  abstinence.  Th« 
work  will  be  divided  into  nine  parts,  in  which  its  subjects  will  be  embraced 
according  to  the  following  summary  of  contents  . 

Part       I. — Temperance  as  a  Virtue.      Showing  how  it  begins  with  S«lf- 
Denial,  is  opposed  to  Sensual  Gratification,  and  expresses 
Obedience  to  Divine  Law. 
Part     II.-  -The  Chemical  History  of  Alcohol.     Embracing  the  Chemi- 

cal  History,  Nature,  and  Properties  of  Alcohol. 
Part    III.- -The   Dietetics  of  Temperance.     Food,  Physic,  or  Poison? 
Showing  that  neither  Health  nor  Strength  is  given  by  Liquors. 
Part    IV. — The  Pathology  of  Intemperance.     Embracing  the  Question 
of  the  Action  of  Alcohol  upon  the  System,  giving  Experi- 
ments, Statistics,  and  Illustrations. 
Part      V. — The  Medical  Question.     Showing  the  Nature  of  Disease  and 
its  Remedy  ;  demonstrating  that  Alcohol  is  not  a  Curative 
Agent,  and  presenting  a  variety  of  convincing  Arguments, 
Statistics,   and    Quotations   against   the  Use   of  Stimulants 
under  the  Pretence  of  Healing  Physical  Disoiders. 
Part    VI. — Temperance  in  Relation  to  the  Bible.     Embracing  Ancient 
Teetotalism  and  the  Bible  Argument  for  Total  Abstinence, 
popular  and  critical. 
Part  VII. — Historical.     Embracing  the  History  of  Drinking  Usages,  of 
Attempts  in  Ancient  Times  to  stop  the  Evil,  and  of  the  Rise 
and  Progress  of  the  Modern  Temperance  Reformation. 
Part  VIII. — The  National  Question  and  the  Remedy.    Embracing  the 
Results  of  Intemperance,  as  exhibited  in  its  Effects  upon  the 
Moral,  Social,  Industrial,  and  Pecuniary  Interests  of  Men,  witb 
Reliable  Statistics,  and  the  History  of  Prohibition  in  America 
Part    IX. — The  Philosophy  of  Intemperance.    Setting  forth  the  Remedy 

for  the  Evil — Personal,  Social,  and  National. 
Part      X. — Summary  of  the  Argument. 

Questions  upon  the  text  are  given  at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  so  that 
lessons  may  be  given  out  to  children  and  youth  in  schools.  Bands  of  Hope, 
and  families,  and  in  this  respect  will  supply  a  demand  for  a  permanent,  ac- 
curate, and  standard  Text-book  upon  the  subject  to  be  introduced  into  the 
common  schools  of  the  country. 

As  to  the  qualifications  of  Dr.  Lees  for  the  authorship  of  such  a  woik, 
■othing  need  be  said  to  those  who  are  acquainted  with  his  published  writ 
Ings  ;  and  to  those  who  are  not,  it  need  only  be  remarked,  that  his  abilities 
RS  a  tsmperance  writer,  his  previous  studies  and  labors  in  every  department 
»f  the  subject,  and  his  thorough  familiarity  with  the  historical,  Biblicai,  and 
physiological  aspects  of  the  question,  point  to  him  as  possessing  the  best 
qualifications  of  any  man  in  England  or  America  for  such  a  task. 

No  better  text-book  ever  was  published  for  the  purpose  of  educating  th« 
public  sentiment  of  the  nation  upon  the  great  fundamental  doctrines  of  tb* 
rarse  and  the  true  remedy  for  the  evils  of  intemperance. 
The  book  will  be  sent  bv  mail  on  receipt  of  price. 

Address  J.  N.  STEARNS,  Publishing  Agent, 

US  lieade  Street^  New  York 


TEMPERANCE  FUBUGATIONS. 


■♦  «  » 


The  National  Temperance  Society  have  recently  published 
the  following  pamphlets  in  cheap  form,  that  they  may  have  a  wide  cir- 
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The  Church  and  Temperance.   By  Hon.  wniiam E.Dodge. 

A  valuable  paper  presented  to  the  Pan-Pre.sbyterian  Couticil  in  Philadel- 
phia.   12mo,  36pp $0  10 

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Alcohol  and  the  Human  Brain.    By  Rev.  Joseph  Cook. 

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Ten  Lectures  on  Alcohol.  By  B.  W.  Richardson,  M.D. 
12mo,  338  pages.  Comprising  "  Cantor  Lectures,"  "Alcohol  on  the  Body 
and  the  Mind,"  "Moderate  Drinking,"  and  "  The  Liberty  of  the  Abject." 
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Temperance  Sketches  and  Stories.    By  Edward  Cars- 

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thors.   Suitable  forreadinojg,  recitations,  declamation's,  etc.,  in  all  temperance  meetings. 

Juvenile  Temperance  Reciterii  The  National  Temperance 
Society  have  just  published  a  new  and  valuable  collection  of  66  Recitations 
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pages.    Adapted  for  Sunday-schools,  Concerts,  Bands  of  Hope,  and  other 
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National  Temperance  Almanac lo 

This  admirable  handbook  for  1881  is  now  ready,  and  full  of  interesting  facts,  fissures, 
and  statistics.    72  pages,  on  tinted  paper. 

Christianity   Against  the   Liquor  Crime.     i3mo,  24 

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ALCOHOL  AND  HYGIENE. 

An  Eletnentary  TeocUBook  for  Schools, 

laclior  of  "Catechism  on  Alcohol,"  "Juvenile  Temperance  Manual,"  and  "The  Temperanca 

School." 

i2mo,  231    pages.     Price  60  cents. 

THE  NATIONAL  TEMPERANCE  SOCIETY  has  just  published  a  new  and  valuable 
text-book  on  alcohol,  with  the  above  title,  prepared  with  great  care  and  skill,  by  Miss 
Julia  Colmau.  It  is  designed  especially  to  meet  the  wants  of  a  younger  grade  of 
pupils  than  the  ''  Temperance  Lesson-Book"  by  Dr,  Richardson  ;  is  free  from  difficult  and 
technical  scientific  terms,  but  based  upon  the  latest  teachings  of  enlightened  science  con- 
cerning alcohol  and  its  effects  upon  the  human  system. 

The  great  question  of  temperance,  the  relations  of  alcohol  to  health,  are  here  set  forth 
simply,  concisely,  and  comprehensively.  What  is  alcohol  ?  how  is  it  made  ?  and  what  effect 
does  it  have  upon  those  who  take  much  or  little  under  various  circumstances  ?  are  the 
main  questions  treated  as  fully  as  could  be  expected  in  a  book  of  this  size.  The  questions 
at  the  bottom  of  every  page  are  so  planned  as  to  draw  out,  in  the  answers  of  the  scholars,  the 
most  important  facts.  The  leading  statements  also  have  references  to  an  Appendix,  where 
quotations  from  well-kno^vn  authorities  are  given  in  proof,  "  with  chapter  and  verse  "  care- 
fully recorded.  It  covers  in  the  successive  chapters  a  wide  range  of  topics,  which  are  treated 
in  a  familiar,  pleasant  style,  and  accompanied  by  marginal  numbered  questions  for  recitu. 
tion  and  review.  It  meets  admirably  an  urgent  need  of  primary,  public,  and  private  schools, 
and  \\  ill  be  a  most  welcome  help  in  giving  temperance  instruction  in  connection  with  all 
juvenDe  temperance  organizations.  It  should  be  speedily  brought  into  general  use. 
The  following  is  the  table  of  contents  : 


Lesson. 

\,—  What  is  Alcohol? 
II,— The  Origin  of  Alcohol. 
HI. — Alcohol  from  Grapes. 
IV ,— Alcohol  from  Grain. 
\,—The     Brewer      and      the 
JUaTver, 
VI. — Distillation  of  Alcohol. 
VII.— ^  Bit  of  Chemistry. 
TIU^— Alcohol     is     Greedy     of 


Lesson. 
JLXIL,— Alcohol  and  Severe  Cold. 

XX.— ^  Brain  Poison. 
XXI. — One  Cause  of  Insanity. 
XXII.— T/ie  Great  Deceiver. 
XXIII. — Some  Deceits  of  Alcohol. 
ILXW.— Would  You  Like  a  Clear 
Head  ? 
XXV.— I>o    Ton   Want  a  Steady 
Sand? 
Water.  ~  1        XXVI.— ^  Chapter  of  Accidents. 

Ul..— Alcohol  and  the  Xerves.  XXVII,— CWwies  Caused  lyy  Alco- 

X. — Alcohol  as  a  Poisoi%.  hoi, 

li.1  —Alcohol  in  the  Stomach.     \  JLX.VI11,— Alcohol      Wastes       JPro- 
yilt  .—Alcohol  an  Intruder,  perty. 

""''"'  "'         '  XXIX. — Disease  from,  Alcohol. 

J\L\.yL.— Death  from  Alcohol. 
XXXI.— -J.»t  Artificial  Apjietite. 
XXXII.— TF/taJ  Shall  I  Do  About 
It? 
XXXIII.— TFiue,  Cider,  and  Beer. 
JLILX-YV ,— Achievements       of      ub^ 
stainers. 


'X.m.—The  Danger  Signal. 
XIV.— Js  Alcohol  Food  ? 
XV, — Does      Alcohol      give 
Strength? 
XVI,— T/*c  ITat  Made  by  Alco- 
hol. 
XVII,— JTow  Alcohol  Treats  the 
lAver. 
XAFIW.—Alcohol  in  Hot  Climates. 


Address  J.    N.   STEARNS,  Publishing  Agent, 

58  Reade  Street,  New  York. 


Talks  on   Temperance 

BY 

Rey.  Ganon  Fakrar,  D.D,  F.E.S. 
12mo,  198  pages;  cloth,  60  cents;  paper  cover,  25  cents. 


The  National  Temperance  Society  has  recently  piiblislied 
the  12  Sermons  and  Talks  by  this  eminent  divine.  They  are 
iilled  with  sound  convincing  arguments  against  the  lawfulness, 
morality,  and  necessity  of  the  Liquor  Traffic,  as  well  as  stirring 
appeals  to  all  Christian  men  and  women,  to  take  a  firm,  decided, 
outspoken  stand  in  favor  of  Total  Abstinence  from  all  intoxica- 
!  ting  liquors. 

i  He  gives  the  trumpet  no  uncertain  sound,  when  he  proclaims 
I  war  against  Alchohol,  but  urges  every  motive,  and  brings  to  bear 
\  every  incentive,  to  enlist  recruits  from  every  class. 

OVER   40,000   COPIES 

>  jave  already  been  sold  in  England,  and  we  trust  that,  with  the 
^ery  low  price  at  which  they  are  sold,  they  will  secure  a  wide  cir^ 
culation  in  every  community.     The  following  is  the  Table  of 

OOIVTEIVTS: 

1.  Betiireen  the  Living  and  the  Dead. 

2.  Reasons  for  Being  an  Abstainer. 

3.  Total  Abstinence  for  the  Sake  of  Ourselves  and  others. 

4.  The  Vow  of  the  Nazarite. 

5.  The  Vow  of  the  Rechabites. 

6.  The  Serpent  and  the  Tiger. 

7.  Our  Duty  as  a  Nation. 

8.  Abstinence  from  Evil. 

9.  Address  to  Teachers. 

10.  Experience  of  a  Total  Abstainer. 

11.  Duty  of  the  Cliwrcli. 

12.  Fallacies  about  Total  Ab^tlaience. 

It  will  be  sent  by  mail  on  receipt  of  price. 

Address         J.    N.    STEA.RNS,    Publishing   Ageut, 

58  Reade  Street ,  New  York 


TEN  LECTURES  ON  ALCOHOL 

By  BENJAMIN  W.  RICHARDSON,  M.A.,  M.D.,  F.R.S. 

Fellow  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physiciant^  London,  etc. 

i2mo,    340    pages,    cloth,    $1.00.      Paper    covers,    50    cents 


The  National  Temperance  Society  have  just  published  in  one 
volume  all  the  Lectures  by  Dr.  Richardson  on  Alcohol,  which  n:iakes  one 
of  the  most  valuable  and  cheapest  books  ever  published.  It  comprises 
the  following : 

On  Alcohol.     With  an  Introduction  by  Dr.  Willard  Parker,  of 

NewYork 100 

This  book  contains  the  "  Cantor  Lecturee  "  delivered  before  the  Society  of 
Arts.  These  justly  celebrated  lectures,  six  in  number,  embrace  a  historical  sketch 
O*  alcoholic  distillation,  and  the  results  of  an  exhaustive  scientific  inquiry  con- 
;ming  the  nature  of  alcohol  and  its  eflFects  upon  the  human  body  and  mind, 
/hey  have  attracted  much  attention  throughout  Great  Britain,  both  among  phy- 
•icians  and  general  readers,  and  are  the  latest  and  best  scientific  expositions  of 
Jcohol  and  its  effects  extant. 

The  Action  of  Alcohol  on  the  Body  and  on  the  ]^ind.        st 

Two  able  and  important  lectures,  the  result  of  careful  and  extended  research- 
M  as  to  the  results  of  alcohol  from  a  scientific  stand-point,  and  are  among  the 
rWest  contributions  to  this  branch  of  the  subject. 

'Moderate  Drinking^;  For  and  Against,  from  Scientific  Points 

of  View 47 

It  is  a  thoroughly  scientific  and  impartial  discussion  of  the  subject  of  the 
moderate  use  of  alcoholic  beverages,  by  one  who  stands  in  the  front  rank  of 
}he  most  distinguished  scientists  in  Great  Britain,  and  .is  such  possesses  a  rare 
value  for  circulation  among  the  young,  and  all  who  may  not  yet  have  arrived  at 
mature  convictions  as  to  total  abstinence.  It  is  one  of  the  moat  valuable  con- 
Iributions  its  gilted  author  has  yet  made  to  temperance  literature.  It  ought  to  be 
In  the  hands  of  all  college  students,  and  of  young  men,  ministers,  teachers, 
and  intelligent  people  eveiywhere. 

The    Hedical    Profession   and    Alcohol.    An    Address 

before  the  British  Medical  Association 33 

It  is  a  scientific  plea  for  total  abstinence,  of  great  power.  It  embodies 
»1bo  a  very  earnest  appeal  to  members  of  the  medical  profession  to  join  in  the 
pending  vitally  important  warfare  against  alcoholic  beverages.  It  is  a  most  valu- 
able puolication  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the  physicians  of  this  country,  among 
whom  it  should  have  the  widest  possible  circulation. 

The  Liberty  of  the   Abject,  and   Kl^hy    I    became 

an  Abstainer 13 

S4Q 

Addrew       J.  N   STEARNS,  Publishing  Agent, 
68  Beade  Street,  New  York, 


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Connecticut 

Libraries 


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